!:• 'I' 




Class _^i=^5~"^ 
Book 




SEMICENTENNIAL PUBLICATIONS 

OF THE 

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 




1868-1918 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 

The Beginning 
LIEUTENANT MILUTIN KRUNICH 



WITH THE AH) DJ ENGLISH miOM OP 
LE.UI MARIE BRUCE 




BOSTON AND NEW YORK 

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 

^be Ribcrjaitie ^xtu "JEambriDge 

1918 



TYX'»>v»arK»»-^''*V- 



^.6\ 


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COPYRIGHT, 1917, BV THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY COMIANY 
COPYRIGHT, I918, BY HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 

Publish f J A/arch iqi8 



o7 of 'J. 

SEP 25 I92Q 



This Book 

is dedicated to Mrs. Bruce, who proved 
how an xVmerican mother could love a 
child from the great democratic family. 

M. K. 



CONTENTS 

I. The Fall of Nish 1 

n. The Graveyard by the Morava . 1S4 

III. The Place of the Skull . . . 168 

IV. Our Child 201 



"The Graveyard by the Morava" and "Thb 
Place of the Skull" are reprinted by permission of 
the editor of the Atlantic Monthly. 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 
I 

THE FALL OF NISH 

"How beautiful is this country!" exclaimed 
Bata, filling his breast with the pure fresh air, 
and stretching out his arms in a tender imag- 
inary embrace toward the fields, forests, rosy 
hills, blue mountains, white and peaceful vil- 
lages of the paradise which sped before our 
eyes, bathed in an ocean of morning sunlight. 

** Beautiful? You might say tliis of a dross, 
a hat, a horse, a house, or even an apple, but 
for this land, our Serbia, it means nothing. To 
describe her you must use the language of 
poetry, for her country is poetry and her peo- 
ple are poets. Or you must speak in the voice 
of thunder, for those hills are pyramids built 
of the bones of your grandfathers, piled and 
cemented witli their blood; from them the 
song of liberty has thundered in terrible bat- 
tles. Or you must use the language of tears, 
for those brooks are the tears of slaves for five 

1 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



centuries; or of song, for the Serbian sings 
whether he lives in happy liberty, or lan- 
guishes in chains of slavery. Sing to me, Bata, 
and I shall understand you best," said Spale,^ 
who was sitting by the door of the car. 

Bata grew serious for a moment, and then 
smiled bitterly. 

"We artists can never be natural. He is 
begging me to sing to him while he is going to 
die! His heart wants a song while 'two' have 
already grasped him, one at the hair and the 
other at the feet, and the third, — hmm, — 
his 'own brother,* has raised his 'brotherly* 
hand, in which glitters the poisoned knife, 
with which he wants to pierce this very heart 
wliich is singing. You know that the Bul- 
garian national tradition is: hate; be silent; 
for the other knife you must have is between 
your teeth." 

"That is the difference between the broth- 
ers: they have the knije between their teeth 
and cannot sing: we have another tradition, 
quite different: 'sing me the everlasting 
song'!" 

* Pronounced Spah-lay. 
2 



THE FALL OF NISH 



My noble comrades! Both were artists. 
Bata was a poet, a visible, powerful, healthy 
figure, at the new young and modern Serbian 
Parnassus. Spale was a painter, an ideal soul, 
a true artist in his whole being, the flower of 
an artistic nation, which, as in poetry, so in 
colors, sought to give an expression of its 
heart. With his unusual intelligence, great 
work, indomitable will, and divine genius, 
Spale had striven to link modern painting 
with the national painting, to give voice to 
the national feelings, and thus to give to na- 
tional art a new direction, from patriarchal 
simplicity to develop a new and brilliant 
epoch from which the European critics would 
determine its place in the artistic world. This 
had succeeded well in later times; this art had 
been admired in the salons of Paris and Lon- 
don. Spale's name had, at this time, begun to 
shine among the other Serbian stars: Mesh- 
trovich,^ Vuchetich, Roksandich, Jovanovich, 

* Meshtrovich, Serbian sculptor, of world-wide reputation, 
whose exhibition in London raised a storm of admiration. 
The most famous among his works are " Kossovo Temple," 
"My Mother," "Milosh Ohilich," "Marko Kralevich," 
" Srja-Zlopogleja," etc. 

8 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



Bucovatz, Vookanovich, Gleeshich, Predich, 
whose works were, as those of Spale, the inter- 
pretation of the Serbian national art. 

Bata and Spale were both young, but they 
had won, by their work, a high place in Ser- 
bian society. Both, with their great knowl- 
edge, will, and power, and undying love of 
their country, had put themselves at the head 
of Young Serbia, guiding it by their genius to 
a happy future. Each in his own direction had 
endeavored to show the twentieth-century 
world that Serbia, although little, had the right, 
by her progress in all the fields in which other 
European nations had grown, not only to be a 
free country, but also, by all her public works 
to be ranked with modern nations. The work 
of those two young men, like that of the whole 
nation during this later period, had flourished 
with a strange beauty and with tremendous 
success. Art is the life of a nation, the scale 
on which its value is computed, the light 
which brightens a nation, showing to the 
whole world its life. The artists are the 
creators of this light, the leaders, the first 
men, who are glorified by the grateful peo- 
4 



THE FALL OF NISH 



pie. Certainly Bata and Spale had begun to 
feel the sweetness of a beautiful, deserved 
glory. 

And now? There are no more poets, no 
more painters, no art, no glory, but only sol- 
diers, desperate defenders of liberty. Liberty 
is the mother of art, and art is life. When 
there is no liberty, then there is no art, no life. 
Now the people who were proud of their lib- 
erty and their art are hurling themselves to 
destroy Serbian liberty, the liberty of our 
good mother who had created such beautiful, 
healthy, sweet, and wonderful children. Yet 
the children defend and die for their mother. 
They become as one: poet with blacksmith, 
minister with workman, painter with peasant, 
gentleman with shepherd. All are going in one 
line, the line of soldiers, defenders, a living 
wall of manly breasts with only one thought: 
death or liberty. 

For this reason Bata and Spale, as simple 
lieutenants, were mingled with common sol- 
diers, crowded with fifty others in an *'H" 
car, used in time of peace to carry oxen and 
swine, and they were running toward Pirot, 
5 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



there to form a third wall against the third 
enemy, the "brotherly" Bulgarian. 

That of which the Serbian diplomats had 
the most fear, that which the Allied Ambassa- 
dors had worked with all their power to pre- 
vent, offering incredible sacrifices, had come: 
Serbia was surrounded — Serbia, the stum- 
bling-block of the Kaiser and his Junkers, the 
watchful sentinel of the East, the deep cliff on 
the road to India, the pyramid at the foot of 
which had broken the waves of Teutonic in- 
vasion, the key of the victory of the Central 
Powers; her people a band of heroes who, in 
their own way, had explained the Drang nach 
Ostcn, little black scarecrows in the midst of 
Potsdam, a bug in the eye of " magnissiinus 
Csesar." Yes, the firm wall of living breasts 
now is swaying. Were they not enough for 
little Serbia — the legions of the two "strong- 
est world-powers "? Was it not enough for the 
poor Serbians — the dreadful typhus which 
was made worse by all the Junkers and 
Hungarians? 

No, it was not enough, for Serbia still con- 
tinues, Serbia is still alive. And, seeing his 
6 



THE FALL OF NISH 



weakness, and fearing new Serbian victories, 
the Kaiser, forgetting for the moment the 
honor of his Junkers, with one wink ordered 
his vassal serv^ant to set the Bulgarian people 
against Serbia; a people who are worse than 
this servant, and a people who, unfortunately, 
know where the brotherly heart is lying. Ever 
since the war began, the Serbian nation hoped 
that the Bulgarians would now, at this critical 
moment, with their free thought, witli their 
Slavic feelings, and their democratic ideas, 
tear away with one stroke the black curtain 
which German influence had tied over their 
eyes, and finally look into the light of truth. 

But alas ! Now the Serbians were convinced 
that the Bulgarian nation was really a moral 
slave, a blind horse, which foreign Coburg 
pulled by his own will with the German bridle. 

Belgrade, Shabatz, Valevo, Laznitca, Sme- 
dereno, were all destroyed. But what does it 
mean to the Kaiser.'' Nothing. He wants the 
very heart of Serbia, the point which links 
Berlin-Bagdad. Yes, he needs Nish. But it is 
very far from the Sava to Nishava, and the 
road is very hard over Bagrdan Pass, the Ser- 
7 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



bian breast which defends and hides its heart. 
Because of that there is need of a "brother" 
who knows just where this heart is. This 
"brother," with a slashing knife in his hand 
and another between his teeth, with the sign 
of hatred on his forehead, silently rushed 
toward the brotherly heart. From this mo- 
ment the agony of Serbia began. Death fin- 
ally found its most comfortable cradle. 

And yet, now, those men, those Serbian sol- 
diers, pressed into this big car as grain is held 
in the hand of a poor man, crowded over us, 
reaching out their heads through the wide- 
open door in order to see the divine picture 
which passed before their eyes. And looking 
upon the dear little villages, their white 
churches, their fields and hills, upon all this 
romantic beauty, upon their poetry, and in- 
toxicated by the sweet perfume of the free 
and magnificent dawn, their hearts trembled 
with powerful emotion, and suddenly the 
song thundered from their breasts. 

Aoy, Kayka, what a load I carry ! 
Your mother's sorrow, now, how can you 
marry? 

8 



THE FALL OF NISH 



Ee, yoo, yoo, brides are few, 
Ee, yoo, yoo, brides are few. 
They keep the ones they'd promised you. 

Soldiers, mother, see the gvms they carry ! 
They'll save us and come back, and I shall 
marry. 

Ee, yoo, yoo, brides are few, 
Ee, yoo, yoo, brides are few. 
They keep the ones they'd promised you. 

This is the song of my regiment. Every 
Serbian regiment has its own song made by 
its own soldiers. I cannot explain what this 
song means to the soldiers. It is a holy thing, 
the prayer, the hope, the power, the life. Song 
is the best expression and interpreter of a 
regiment. With it a regiment goes into bat- 
tle, with it the soldier fights; it gives him 
courage and force, it intoxicates him, and de- 
fends him, and with it he dies. 

Really there is something strange in my 
people, which I have scarcely seen in other 
nations, something so powerful, so truly 
beautiful, pure, and ideal, that it can be ex- 
pressed by only one language, the language 
of song. Because of that, song is always on 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



a Serbian's lips; he speaks with it, he ex- 
presses with it the desires of his heart for 
beauty and Hberty. And the soldiers are the 
fathers and brothers defending tliis beauty 
and liberty. Perhaps this is why every Ser- 
bian regiment has its own song. 

*'My wonderful people!" exclaimed Bora, 
who was sitting beside me at the door, trem- 
bling with emotion. He was a student ser- 
geant, our little boy, the youngest in my com- 
pany, with rosy cheeks and innocent eyes, 
which, up to this time, had looked upon the 
world seeking only beauty. Now they were 
filled with tears. 

"Yes, my wonderful people!" said Spale. 
**Tliy wonder is song! They have chosen song 
to be their ideal aim of life, their teacher, and 
most powerful help. The Serbian people 
know the power of song. In their simplicity 
they say, *Song has supported us; to it, our 
gratitude.' Yes, songs strengthened us 
through the centuries of Turkish slavery; 
songs have given to us liberty; songs have 
opened to us the wide gate of a happy future; 
songs have avenged Kossovo, and made free 
10 



THE FALL OF NISH 



our brothers. Those songs are living in the 
fields, forests, and mountains; they are living 
in the breast of the Serbian nation. That is 
why we are still alive. And now there is need 
of the whole of Krupp's Kultur, all the 
Mephistophelian philosophy, all the devilish 
schemes, Shwaba's legions, millions of 'broth- 
ers,' hunger, thirst, horrors, and everything 
imaginable, to destroy this song. But, so 
help me God, these legions and millions, ten 
to one, can destroy, kill, and crush into the 
dust everything but one, and this is Serbian 
song. When our whole regiment shall be 
destroyed, its song will hover over its ruins, 
and with its wonderful power, its might of 
eternal life, create again a new life, a new 
future." 

Thus spoke a Serbian, and the thunder of 
the song which had overcome the rattling of 
the cars, was the best proof of the truth of his 
words. 

But the train, paying no heed to these ideal 
moments, sped on, carrying us to a cold and 
terrible reality, 

* * * 
11 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



When we reached Pirot, war had not yet 
been declared, for the diplomats were still 
fighting. It was a contest full of shame, for 
the Bulgarians had no fundamental reason 
why they should declare war — no reason 
which would be sensible in the eyes of the 
honest world. Certainly the Bulgarians had 
a very difficult position in this struggle, one 
to which they were not accustomed. Only two 
years before they had attacked the Serbians, 
their allies of yesterday, without a diplo- 
matic struggle or declaration of war. Two 
years ago, knowing that they had no reason, 
nor weapons with which to fight diplomati- 
cally, — which is the first condition of demo- 
cratic existence, — and fearing to come as 
men in the full light of God in an honest bat- 
tle, they chose a third way, the way of hyenas 
and serpents, by which the " Tsar-Coburg " 
had ordered his ** courageous children" to at- 
tack the Serbians in a dark night. 

Moreover, that the vile thing might be 

complete and perfect, the Bulgarian officers 

dined with the Serbians that same night, 

sharing their bread, while in their pockets 

12 



THE FALL OF NISH 



was the written order for this attack. A real 
dinner of Judas Iscariot in this twentieth 
century! At that time they could do this, for 
the thing was of an "entirely local nature," 
and, besides, Austria was back of them. 

But now it was quite different. Now the 
thing was not of a "local nature"; now the 
truth was not hidden by the "darkness of 
the Balkans" and the "Ballplatz of Vienna," 
from the eyes of the rest of the world, but, on 
the contrary, to-day the eyes of an Argus 
looked upon the Balkans. Now they had to 
have a reason with which a brother could tear 
out the brotherly heart; they had to have a 
real basis for war, an ultimatum, a breaking 
of diplomatic relations, a regular declaration 
of war; for the time of darkness, of Attila and 
Alaric had gone. Alas! scarcely two years! 
And in a terrible need for a fundamental rea- 
son, Coburg, the son of a Teutonic tribe, 
invented it in an ingenious manner. It was 
Macedonia! 

In 1913 Macedonia was the reason for war. 
But at that time Bulgarian diplomacy did not 
dare to fight honestly with this weapon, for 
13 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



we were all too familiar with this thing. The 
Bulgarians knew very well that Macedonia, 
for them, meant only a good bite with which 
they could satisfy their megalomaniac ap- 
petite. But for the Serbians Macedonia meant 
everything, past and future, creator of the 
Serbian State, work of Serbian efforts, cradle 
of glory and song, — in one word, Serbia's 
soul. When Bulgaria, then, did not dare to 
fight with this weapon among the Balkans, 
now, among strangers, believing in the power 
of lies, they courageously put it on the green 
table. 

Deceit is an element of Bulgarian character. 
Even in 1913, the dupes, foul and paid schol- 
ars among the Coburg, had tried with all 
their strength to prove that Macedonia by 
ethnographic reasons should be Bulgarian.^ 

^ In February of 1913 the Bulgarian Academy printed a 
brochure, a protest against the Serbian political and military 
control over the Macedonian inhabitants, who by ethno- 
graphic reasons were Bulgarians, and as such were antagonized 
by the Serbians. The 9th of May, 1913, Mr. Stojanovich, the 
secretary of the Serbian Royal Academy, sent to all foreign 
academies, societies, and libraries a declaration of a plenary 
assembly of the academic members, seeking, by scientific 
proofs, to overthrow the reasons of the Bulgarian Academy 
and to declare them false. The declaration is ended: if the 

14 



THE FALL OF NISH 



This lie did not help them before the Serbians 
and other Slavs. Now they are trying the 
same before the strangers. What a foul thing! 
What misery! A spirit full of slavish ambi- 
tion, the spirit which distinguishes the Bul- 
garian nation! But those strangers were the 
Serbian allies, who, fighting together for the 
same thing, knew themselves very well, and 
especially their souls. And the Serbian soul 
was just this Macedonia, which the Bulgari- 
ans are asking for themselves : a slavish spirit 
asks for the Serbian soul! "The strangers" 
had quickly seen the truth and with it illu- 
mined the Bulgarian lies. But the " Bulgarian 
Tsar" did not care for this, and the Bulgarian 
nation, as I have said, is a slave, a blind horse, 
which this Teuton, by an old custom of the 
tribe, drives with Gessler's spurs, despised 
even by their great Schiller. 

In these critical moments, the Allied dip- 
lomats associated with the Serbian diplo- 
mats, realizing the imperative need of Ser- 

Serbian Royal Academy should enter into political discussion 
about Macedonia, it would protest against her separation from 
Serbia for much more important reasons than ethnological 
ones. 

15 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



bia's independence, had continued even 
against their will this ugly, miserable fight- 
ing, offering to their adversary indescribable 
sacrifices — quite the half of the Serbian soul. 
But Ferdinand "remains cold" (for there was 
no question about the soul, but about the 
heart of Serbia, about Nisli, the aim of the 
European war) and the Bulgarian people 
still remained blind, for — oh, shame! — 
among them will never be born a William 
Tell. And seeing that in Sofia everybody was 
bowing low before the Teutonic hat, Ferdi- 
nand, encouraged by this "veneration," took 
the decisive step; he recalled his ambassador 
from Serbia. 

While this unique and most memorable 
struggle of all history was going on, the Ser- 
bian people were not sitting with folded arms. 
Knowing the Bulgarian people very well, by 
most bitter experience, they knew that this 
diplomatic contest was in vain. They felt 
that the Bulgarians would attack them, and 
on the third side, in spite of such tremendous 
sacrifices. Therefore, they bravely began an- 
other struggle, a struggle very heavy, very 
16 



THE FALL OF NISH 



painful, and quite impossible — the struggle 
with nature. When the Serbian people saw 
that it was impossible to make the defending 
wall of their breasts on a front of more than 
eight hundred miles (at that time Serbia had 
scarcely three hundred thousand soldiers), 
they tried with all their power to prepare na- 
ture to help them. Under the guidance of 
their General Staff, the whole Serbian nation 
became workmen with picks and shovels, en- 
deavoring to perform this superhuman task. 
The hills were destroyed and made new, the 
century-old stones were crushed and piled, 
the most terrible peaks were climbed, and the 
deepest precipices were explored, the forests 
were cut down, the fields were slashed with 
endless trenches, the old roads were destroyed 
and new ones built, the rivers were ordered 
where to run : and all this to be done in a time 
impossible to imagine — in three weeks. Yet, 
while doing this Herculean work, by which 
the hands became bloody and the body 
broken by exhaustion, the Serbian people 
still sang. They sang for this gigantic task to 
be done, and for their heart and for their soul 
17 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



— for Nish and Macedonia. And with the 
strokes of picks, shovels, and axes, through 
this beautiful, romantic nature, over these 
mountains and valleys, echoed the song. To 
their dear poetry the Serbians added the last 
pages : their regimental songs. 



When my regiment arrived at Pirot, the 
whole Second Army was there. More than 
sixty thousand men in a little town! A real 
hive! A hive full of industrious bees, which, 
under a certain devilish rule (this strange 
effect wall be noticed in the New World En- 
cyclopaedia under the name of "Pan-Ger- 
manism"), had put on one side their old job, 
making honey, and had taken up a new one, 
that of sharpening their stings. Through the 
wide-open doors of large storehouses streamed 
a flood of picks, shovels, saws, axes, lumber, 
carried in their arms, or piled on big wagons, 
on little donkeys and horses, and taken in 
all directions, to all points, in order to make 
from the comb, poison, and from poetry, 
thunder! Such was the time. Everything 
18 



THE FALL OF NISH 



was changed. The perfume of flowers became 
asphyxiating gas; the rivers, blood; the woods, 
"forests of dead"; the bowels of the moun- 
tains, horrors; the fields, "lands of tears"; the 
cemeteries were places without boundaries, 
for they were everywhere; the churches were 
objects for sacrilege; the artist became a crip- 
ple; man became an animal; love was gone; 
and the nation was ashes. The question is. 
Who was guilty.'^ The encyclopaedia of the 
future will explain. 

My regiment got orders to fortify the posi- 
tions on the left side of the town and on the 
right slopes along the Nishava River — a big 
space which reaches from Basarski-Kamen 
to the Bulgarian frontier, and from Strashna- 
Chooka to Batooshin. First of all, my com- 
pany had to fortify the mountains around 
Tser-Tser, a gigantic mountain which cut the 
clouds. 

On the 25th of August, just before evening, 
my company came to the foot of Tser-Tser. 
Our captain had chosen for our camp a beau- 
tiful little green valley edged by the old wild- 
pear ti;ees, through which a joyful little moun- 
19 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



tain brook murmui^ed and sang, and from 
which we could start every morning in all 
directions, as required, to dig trenches, for- 
tify peaks, and make roads. With astonish- 
ing rapidity the tents were set in four straight 
lines, and very soon the blue smoke rose from 
the end of the valley where the cooks were 
preparing the dinner. 

Immediately the captain called Spale, who 
was in my company as a commander of the 
second platoon; Cheda, a sergeant, a com- 
mon peasant, but an excellent man and an 
old warrior, the commander of the third 
platoon; Trailo, also a sergeant and peasant, 
a wild man, coming from the wildest and 
most mountainous part of Serbia, but a real 
hero, the commander of the fourth platoon; 
and me, the commander of the first platoon, 
to climb with him to the top of Tser-Tser, 
there to give us instructions, for we had no 
time to lose. Bora, who was only a simple 
sergeant in my platoon, came along with us, 
for it was customary to make all company 
consultations with him, as he was a student, 
an intelligent boy, our friend in time of peace, 
20 



THE FALL OF NISH 



and, after all, we were so used to his smile, 
joke, laughter, and eternal song. 

My God! I shall never forget the picture 
which revealed itself to our eyes when we got 
to the top. From this tremendous height, 
this beautiful pure evening, the vision could 
penetrate very, very far, and thought fled 
even to the sky. The sun, a glorious flaming 
ball of ruby, sank slowly behind the Rtan 
Mountain, whose gigantic rest can be seen 
from nearly all parts of Serbia. It seemed to 
me as if the sun had stopped for a moment 
on the strong centuries-old shoulder of Rtan 
and whispered something to him. And he, 
old watchful giant, the sentinel of this coun- 
try, filling his deep wrinkles and caverns, on 
which are written the traces of the national 
history, with the rosy radiance of the sun, 
smiled, for sweet were the words the sun had 
whispered to its beloved one. And everywhere 
around were high peaks and crests, white, 
bare, and stony, upon which the joyful 
gleams were dancing, hesitating to leave them, 
intoxicated by this endless space. Between 
those peaks and crests wound in all direc- 
21 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



tions the deep and blue valleys, through which 
the white rivers, dashing against the gray 
rocks, were running in one direction, while 
in the opposite the stream of waves of rosy 
radiance were fleeing like the spirits of hap- 
piness. 

And everywhere, in this beautiful nature, 
a divine artist had mingled the blue of sky 
and mountains with the red and rosy hues of 
the sun, and had made a wondrously tender 
violet ocean, which, like a good mother, em- 
braced this whole land in a long, long kiss. 

Beneath our feet spread uncountable hills 
and peaks, which were connected by warm 
old forests and little green meadows and val- 
leys, like a charming beautiful rug woven by 
the golden hands of an innocent girl in her 
dream of love. Paths and roads over these 
hills and valleys stretched like threads of sUk; 
and the little villages, with their white stone 
roofs, clung to these hillsides like the nests of 
swallows. And the sweet breeze, wafted over, 
carried a rich and ravishing perfume on its 
joyous wings from these warm valleys, these 
gigantic peaks and crests, and from the blue 
22 



THE FALL OF NISH 



azure, the perfume of song and flowers, the 
soul of this land. A white flock moved slowly 
along a green hillside going toward a blue 
valley. A cheerful, happy sound of little bells 
floated to this side. 

"Is this the truth or is it a dream?" ex- 
claimed Bora. 

"Both, my little one," said Spale, trem- 
bling with emotion and looking with his artis- 
tic eyes upon this magnificent picture. 

The mischievous wind played with his dark 
hair, the ends of which gleamed with the rosy 
radiance of the sun. His eyes glittered with a 
strange light. 

"Yes," he continued, "this is the truth of 
a wonderful dream, which will be too short! 
These must be terrible men who gather from 
all sides, like wild beasts, to destroy this truth, 
the truth of the happiness of a good nation, 
this beautiful dream, this rare picture." 

"Why?" exclaimed Bora angrily. "Majko 
moja! The other nations preserve and de- 
fend the works of their artists in museums as 
the most precious and holy things, and now 
those same nations are hastening to destroy 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



this picture, this dream, this happiness, the 
ideal life of a nation, a god's work!" 

"Don't be scared. Bora. We are here to 
prevent this, and to defend," said the captain 
with a pained smile. He, too, was much 
moved, and he, too, saw this beauty and felt 
the terrible sin which was to be committed in 
this modern time. Suddenly he started, came 
back to reality, and folded his maps, say- 
ing:— 

"Come on, comrades, to make our * mu- 
seum* in which we will preserve our art. Now 
. . . where are we? Ah, here. You see that hill 
there, and that other beside it, Zlateech, Sed- 
lance, and Mali-Tser; the trenches will be long 
enough to take in two platoons, facing that 
valley there, so that the fire wipes ..." 

Oh, irony! From a dream into an icy real- 
ity; from a paradise to a hell! Yes, very soon 
the thunder will burst here; a storm will be 
raging; the stones will be smashed; the shrap- 
nel will whisper; the shells will explode every- 
where; the forests will burn; the black smoke 
will envelop everything; the houses will be 
leveled; everything w411 be shaking, falling, 
£4 



THE FALL OF NISH 



crackling, melting into the dust; blood will 
run; there will be killing with teeth. Yes, on 
this place will a nation be destroyed. 

After an hour we went slowly down to the 
camp. I turned my head to look for the last 
time on the picture. Darkness was falling. 
Yet the west still burned magnificently, and 
Rtan, there so far, far, was still smiling hap- 
pily. The valleys had darkened, and across 
them stretched the white, rosy, and violet fog 
like a vast web. Little red lights glittered here 
and there in the villages and from the roofs 
the white smoke peacefully rose and mingled 
with the fog. Our camp looked very small 
from this height, the tents like children's toys, 
placed by a good boy on a nice green table. 
A bright sound of music, laughter, and song 
came up from the camp. Song ! Do you under- 
stand this people. f* On the eve of their death, 
on the eve of the day when they must be- 
come murderers, they sang. 



Ten days after this heavy painful work we 
finally came to the village of Rjana, only two 
25 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



miles from the frontier, the place which my 
regiment must defend. Rjana was quite at 
the end of a wide, undulating valley, which 
from Basarski-Kamen dropped for eight 
miles down to the frontier. It looks like a 
great flume. On one side rose terrible Strash- 
na-Chooka, a twisted and broken chain of 
rocky mountains, and on the other, Veedlich, 
a wonder of nature, a mighty wall of granite 
more than four thousand feet high, which 
went from Basarski-Kamen far into Bulgaria. 
In the middle of this wall was a pass from the 
valley, a natural endless stair, called Odor- 
ovskee-Prelaz. Above Veedlich was an enor- 
mous plateau, Batooshin, with on one end 
Golemi-Vrh, a peak more than eight thousand 
feet in height. 

Toorsko-Leevaje, the name of the valley, 
was the key of Basarski-Kamen, the gate of 
Nish. I do not need to speak of the impor- 
tance of this position. My regiment was proud 
because it had for its task the defense of it. 
Two battalions, the first and third, of my 
regiment (the Fifteenth) had fortified the 
position at Strashna-Chooka, the second was 



THE FALL OF NISH 



in the reserve of the division, and mine, the 
fourth, had to defend the valley itself. At 
the end of the valley, behind the village just 
facing the frontier, two hills rose between the 
sides of the flume. One of them was Tzarev- 
Vees, a perfect geometrical cone, and the other, 
Dobra-Glava, like the gray bald head of a 
good-minded old man. The first one had the 
first company and Dobra-Glava got my second 
company. Just across the middle of the fore- 
head of this poor old one we dug three 
trenches — the last work of the bees, after 
which they will use their stings. 

During the time we worked for defense and 
fortification we heard no news. It was quite 
impossible to get it. Being far from the whole 
world, in the company of these century-old 
stones, we heard other news than that about 
the war and politics. But once in a while, Ju- 
lock, the commander of the equipment train 
of my regiment, who went often to Pirot for 
supplies, brought the "new^s": the "news of 
komora" ^ which was, by long experience, 
always the subject of jokes and laughter, and 

^ Commissary equipment train. 

27 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 

beforehand declared "to be too much salt.'* 
Yet in the evening, after the heavy work was 
done and we were gathered around the fire, 
usually eating cooked wild pears, we liked, 
for a joke's sake, to have Julock tell us his 
"very important news." He would squat 
down beside us, speaking in a low and serious 
voice. 

"The Russians are crossing the Black Sea 
on a hundred galleons. The French are as 
ants in Salonika. The Bulgarians have killed 
Ferdinand; true, so help me God. The Kai- 
ser himself came to Zemlin to encourage his 
soldiers who do not dare to attack us any 
more." And three hundred other items of 
"important news" of this sort. The soldiers 
listened to him seriously. We would some- 
times smile bitterly, and Spale, beside the 
fire, would sketch this interesting "press 
bureau" a hundred times over. 

When we came to Rjana, where were the 
staff of the regiment, the hospital, tele- 
graphic and telephonic departments, we 
heard the truth. Belgrade had been at- 
tacked. The Austro-Hungarian armies had 
28 



THE FALL OF NISH 



crossed the Dreena and the Sava, and the 
Germans the Danube. 

"Now the end begins," said Bata, whom 
we had not seen for more than two weeks, as 
he was in another company, and the com- 
panies were separated and dispersed in all 
directions. 

"Why end? They will kill me and you, for 
they are ten to one, and they will destroy 
everything we have built for a hundred years; 
but our children will remain to build again. 
This is law," said a captain-, father of five 
little children, slowly and seriously as a man 
who has made up his mind. 

"Ten to one!" exclaimed Bora. "Ho, 
Boga mu! I am just happy, for I have my 
twenty years and can experience why a man 
is man!" 

"Very cheap experience, indeed, boy: only 
a little piece of lead ! " The major, commander 
of my battalion, tried to make a joke. 

"Major, I must not pay in the very first 
moment, and the certain number of these 
moments have tl^e worth of this price," said 
Bora, blushing. 

29 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



"You'll be happy if you pay just at the 
very first," said my captain slowly with a 
tired and bitter smile. 

A singular man! Certainly I shall never 
meet such a man again in my lifetime. He 
was young and very handsome with a noble 
manner. During the Turkish w^ar, at the 
siege of Skadar, he contracted pneumonia 
which soon turned into tuberculosis. And, 
just when he intended to resign from the 
army after the Turkish war, the Bulgarian 
came. He went again to the war and his 
health became worse. After the war, he went 
to Switzerland to seek a cure. One year after, 
finding that it was hopeless, he intended to 
resign, but again, the same game of destiny — 
this war came. And this real hero and noble- 
man of democratic soul again led his company. 
Now, in the hopeless misery of his health and 
in the perfect love of his country, he had only 
one aim, to be killed. But his bad destiny con- 
tinued; he was the most unhappy creature 
under the sky; not even his cap had been 
pierced! At this moment, speaking to this 
young and healthy boy, bubbling over with 
30 



THE FALL OF NISH 



youth, he thought from his own sad point of 
view. 

Bora understood him and looked at him 
with a long, pitiful, and tender glance. 

Two days after, when we had dug the 
trenches where we were to remain, we spent 
our first night in them, sitting close to each 
other on a pile of fresh hay. Spale and I did 
not sleep, but we looked up at a piece of the 
sky full of stars, and listened to a strange 
noise, a shivering noise which passed through 
the earth and which could not be heard on the 
surface. They had begun at one end to de- 
stroy this land, and its pain, its last super- 
human effort for existence, its shuddering 
from agony and horrible wounds, its last dy- 
ing quiver passed through its whole body. 
The dreadful detonations around Belgrade 
could be heard even at Pirot. 

*'It is hell 'there,' " whispered Spale, think- 
ing of Belgrade. 

I wished to make answer to him, but I 
could not, because a black and dreadful 
thought had crushed my nerves and whole 
being. 

31 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



The next night we heard no more noise. 
Around midnight, just as Spale had returned 
from patrol duty, tired, and had lain down 
beside me to rest, Julock's head appeared 
above the trench, hiding the stars. 

"Are you there. Lieutenants.^" he asked in 
a whisper. 

"What is it?" I asked him. 

"They have taken Belgrade, and now have 
entirely destroyed it," he said with a changed 
voice, and I felt that he spoke the truth. 

As if somebody had struck me terribly on 
the head, suddenly the stars were gone and 
I felt an unendurable physical pain in my 
breast: my mother was there. 



The days were passed in idleness. As every- 
thing was done (we were really ready to die), 
so during the whole day we laid in the sun- 
shine between the warm stones, like lizards. 
During the night we were at the "dead sen- 
tinel," awake and watchful, for we had paid 
dearly for our experience two years ago. 

While I was lying on this height of Dobra- 
32 



THE FALL OF NISH 



Glava, in a sea of sunshine and air, I looked 
around me, and the objects aroused my 
thoughts. Strange thing, this life. There is 
something wrong in it! These hills and val- 
leys are quite the same as those over the 
boundary. The chain of Strashna-Chooka, 
which reaches far, far into Bulgaria, is just 
the same as here. This valley runs toward the 
blue horizon, like a river, always the same : the 
same air, the same houses, the same men who 
speak quite the same language, the same sun, 
the same sky, the same God, and yet there, 
as here, the trenches are growing with strange 
rapidity. Man before man, neighbor and 
brother, are standing and looking upon each 
other shivering with hatred. From that side 
there, which is the same as this side here, 
death is coming! ^\^ly? Because there is a 
German nobleman "Tsar." Because he is 
a member of a certain group of men (with a 
sounding name, nobility or aristocracy) who, 
through the centuries, have held the nations 
in slavery and have "ruled." 

But through the long chain of years, with 
the help of science, love, and natural laws, 
33 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



the nations began to move, to open their eyes, 
and, brightened by the force of their individ- 
uality, to grow strong in the power of their 
free existence and right to Hberty. More cul- 
tured nations (with a "simple" name, dem- 
ocrats) had noticed this injustice, the im- 
possibility of their position in the time in 
which they were, much earlier (two centuries) 
than the others, and with their power, right, 
and will they have lighted the torch of their 
idea. 

After long struggles, travail, terrible sacri- 
fices (deep was the root of this poisonous aris- 
tocratic plant), and with a flood of their own 
blood they washed away the old regime (the 
most brilliant part of American and French 
history). The nations less cultured, although 
strong, remained still in this shameful posi- 
tion. 

The group of men, the German aristocrats, 
to which this "Tsar" belongs, seeing this 
"movement," grew seriously frightened. They 
were secure in their flock of Burgers and 
Meister Sdngers, for they know they are useful 
only for the innocent " beauty " of their poetry 
34 



THE FALL OF NISH 



(certainly not able to accomplish the work 
of sans-culottes) . Yet they were frightened 
by "influences" from outside. Not entirely 
without reason; for some of these good Meis- 
ter Sangers, especially those who were closer 
to the "influence," would "rhyme" some- 
thing "new" (oh! only in a little liederchen). 
In order to kill this "disastrous thing," more 
than half a century ago one of their first men, 
leader, hero, and star, from the high pedestal 
of his political glory had exclaimed to the 
German people in thrilling and patriotic ad- 
vice: "Nuhr nicht viel resonieren!" 

In other words: "Shut up! and be what 
you are, slave and blind tool": the tool to 
preserve aristocracy. But the expression of 
modern time ran with "devilish speed" and 
the influence, in spite of everything, had its 
effect. (Who ever saw such a "low and ugly" 
thing as socialism is?) 

So, before the end of the last century the 
head of this group (it would be very long and 
tiresome if I were to try to write the title of 
Kaiser Wilhelm), at the very threshold of 
his rule, asked himself very seriously : To be, 
35 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



or not to be? And the answer of this al- 
mighty one was, indeed: To be. But how? 
**If I am chosen, if I am to remain," said this 
man one day in a divine inspiration, kneeling 
before the tomb of Christ in Jerusalem, "if 
I am to rule over the world in Thy name, 
O Lord, I have to kill the 'influence'!" 

Again the question. How? This "influ- 
ence" is the expression of the idea of democ- 
racy of the whole world. It was the idea of 
a divine right of the people which was spread- 
ing everywhere. This idea has to be de- 
stroyed if the Kaiser Wilhelm II and his pos- 
terity want to rule. Therefore, at a secret 
assembly of German nobility (quite a noble 
gesture) which this leader had gathered forty 
years ago, the way was found in which they 
could destroy the "influence, " in other words, 
the democracy of the whole world. 

From that time began a tremendous sys- 
tematic work, the work of making a gigantic 
engine which will save the aristocracy. Cer- 
tainly this work was tremendous, for those 
creatures, although morally dead, yet were 
endlessly powerful in money and connections. 
36 



THE FALL OF NISH 



The programme of this secret assembly was 
partially this : — 

First, the reformation inside: the tool has 
to be well sharpened. So these noblemen, not 
with too great painstaking, have taught the 
German people to say every morning, like a 
parrot: "Ich kann, also ich muss." ^ Every 
people, which is united, is strong, so it "can." 
And certainly the German people "must," for 
this is an old, old tradition which becomes, 
nowadays, a "modern-political" habit. In 
order to hinder every wrong explanation of 
this device, the Kaiser had tirelessly thrown 
in the eyes of his people the patriotic dust of 
the German Pan-Germanism: " Deutschland 
liber alles!" During those forty years of 
preparation the tool was well sharpened in 
the hands of this noble master. 

Second, the organization outside. They 
married their belles (certainly a pure-blooded 
nobility) to the neighboring czars, emperors, 
and kings. (This gift of pure-blooded nobil- 
ity has cost the Russian nation four millions 
killed.) These "dames" do not go without 

* I can, so I mtist, 
37 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



escorts, so they took with them a flood of 
barons, counts, teachers, professors, musi- 
cians, generals, and politicians. Every one of 
these had his personal, public duties and one 
secret which was common. Thus the "influ- 
ence" was against the "influence." 

Third, reorganization outside. They sent 
their members (by a modern political rule and 
"cultural prestige") to foreign countries to 
be kings and "rulers." Ferdinand, a splendid 
member, was sent to Bulgaria. The German 
scholars had discovered a peculiar equality, 
the " Burger " was the same as "petchalbar" 
— the tool was equal. So Ferdinand's duty 
was easy: to preserve the Bulgarian people 
just as they are up to a given moment, and 
during all this time to sharpen them (Bragal- 
nitza was the best whetstone). Only here the 
"dust" was "Velikata Blgarska" instead of 
Pan -Germanism. The ruin of Serbia proves 
that Ferdinand has accomplished his task 
gloriously. 

And thus this engine was built and per- 
fected. On account of their cowardice and 
vileness, it was necessary that this engine re- 
38 



THE FALL OF NISH 



main a secret until it was complete and ready 
to move. Hence, a new dust must be found to 
throw into the eyes of all the world. This dust 
was German "Kultur," German trade, and 
German industry, all under the protection of 
"DeutschesVolks-Bank," whose largest share- 
holder was Kaiser Wilhelm. 

In 1908 the engine was finished. In order 
to test its efficiency, the late Emperor, Franz 
Josef, the second head of the aristocratic 
union, announced the annexation to his Em- 
pire of Bosnia and Herzegovina, two of the 
most democratic countries. This test of the 
secret engine was again secret, hidden under 
the simple business of an "honest" buyer and 
an "honest" seller. Europe was silent. Then 
the Kaiser had the happiest smile in his life. 
"Why, these foolish *plebs' do not under- 
stand a nobleman!" he said one day to his 
friends, looking at the brilliant success of the 
test of the secret engine. 

In 1914 it was decided to make the general 

movement of the engine : for two reasons — 

first, that the secret should not be discovered 

(the reason was the new French and Russian 

39 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



military law) ; and second, that the engine it- 
self should not get rusty. But now arose a 
question : Should the engine be moved openly 
or secretly? For, although they were sure of 
the solidity and endurance of their engine, al- 
though the tears were running from the eyes 
of the German people because of the Pan- 
Germanic dust, yet these noblemen were 
scared, lest in the case of failure (" Oh, God 
forbid it I ") they should come to the prisoner's 
dock. They knew that it would not be war 
between states and states, but the war of Pan- 
Germanism against the whole world, the war of 
idea against idea, the war of tyranny against 
liberty, the war of democracy against aris- 
tocracy. They knew how very dangerous it 
was, but it was the only way to save their 
noble lives (up to this time the cost had been 
only half a dozen million of human lives). 
They knew how great a world-tragedy it 
would be, for which a reason must be found. 
On that account the question, — openly, as 
noblemen, or secretly, as cowards, to find a 
*' reason" for this world- tragedy? They de- 
cided, secretly. Now they need a reason. 
40 



THE FALL OF NISH 



WTiere is it to be found? The democracy, all 
around, had lived a happy life in liberty. 

Finally the diplomats at Ballplatz and Pots- 
dam ingeniously invented the reason. It was 
ingenious, simple, and natural: a democrat 
must kill a member of their society whom 
they will avenge by smashing the democracy. 
But where to find a victim among them, and 
where a murderer? The victim was the less 
important thing (for they are so many). The 
chief thing was, where to find a murderer, and 
the place of the murder? ^Yhere will it be? 
Certainly in Serbia, that little country, their 
greatest hindrance, that pearl of the Slavs, 
that "wild people," that "democratic rag," 
that gate of the East, that undying force, that 
little worm which is gnawing at the great 
tree. Now comes the height of aristocratic 
wildness. Neither had their aristocrat known 
that he was to be killed, when they sent him to 
Serajevo, nor the little democrat known, 
when he pointed his pistol bravely at the 
breast of the nobleman, that it was the hand of 
the aristocrat which guided him (poor Prinzip 
died in a terrible prison when he saw whose 
41 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



tool he had been). And here the good old 
experience had helped, the experience ac- 
quired in the use of the "dust." The dust 
which was thrown in the eyes of this poor boy 
was "Veleeka Srbija." The future member 
of this new, young, and democratic state had 
killed the nobleman, the future ruler of an old 
aristocratic state. 

After the murder, fire, crying, consterna- 
tion, regrets and tears . . . then Serbia was 
called to the prisoner's dock. Haughty, 
swollen, disdainful, the Teuton aristocracy 
had dragged in by the collar the "ragged, 
miserable beggar.'* And without waiting for 
a trial they hastened to smash the worm. 
Austria declared war upon Serbia. And 
booming, thundering, shaking, the engine 
began to move. 

Then Europe struck her forehead. The na- 
tions started and began to think. Serbia.'* Wait 
, . . that little country which was enslaved 
for five centuries? That place where liberty 
was the most glorified? This nation which 
was born democratic? The creator of demo- 
cratic hymns? And now they want to de- 
42 



THE FALL OF NISH 



stroy it? The reason? Ah . . . and all honest 
states hastened in defense of Serbia. And 
democracy, in its power, met face to face the 
aristocracy. Thus the world war began. In 
his "burg" before the map of the world, the 
Kaiser said despitef ully : "Die, rag! For a 
nobleman is born to rule over this world." 

But the "rag" became legion, noble defend- 
ers of their noble idea, and the little worm be- 
came a giant. And, after one year of work by 
the Kaiser's engine, "the worm" still moved, 
this democratic nest had still borne its little 
ones, Serbia still lived. And in his rage, feel- 
ing his failure, the Kaiser, with his "chosen 
people," exclaimed one day with incompa- 
rable brutality: "Zerschmette den Wurm!"^ 

Ferdinand bowed, and used his tool. 

Now, because of that, from this same side, 
from these same hills and valleys, from this 
same people, from brothers, from Bulgaria, 
death is coming. 

Oh, brother, brother! My unhappy blind 
brother, have you thought about the future? 
* * * 

* Smash the worm I 
43 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



I did not like this life of inaction, because 
we had too much time for such thoughts, the 
thoughts which every honest man despises, 
and by which a Serbian becomes insane, or is 
killed. 

Finally, after a few days of this mental 
pain, at eleven o'clock before noon, the 12th 
of October, the order was read that war had 
been declared. The Bulgarians, taking the 
other knife from their teeth, had openly 
avowed for the first time: "Die, brother!" 
(Many and many of God's creatures of this 
land had whispered, "Thank you.") Seeing 
that the Germans and Austrians are really 
progressing, that they have already taken 
Belgrade, Shabatz, Smederevo, Pojarevatz, 
that the Teutonic iron and steel — the best 
product of their culture — had encircled Ser- 
bia on two sides, the Bulgarians hastened to 
fill in on the third side. Easy job, gentlemen? 
Goethe and Vassov had written about this? 

Just as we went back to the trenches after 
this order was read to us, Spale pulled at my 
sleeve. 

"Strange thing!" he said, laughing. 
44 



THE FALL OF NISH 



"What?" I asked seriously, for I was in no 
mood for joking. 

"Imagine this was the overture of an 
opera . . ." 

"Certainly a beautiful piece!" 

"All depends on the composer! But, any- 
way, it is already played. Now the curtain is 
rising. On the stage Mephistopheles, Faust, 
and Marguerite ..." 

"And the new writer of this old libretto.''" 
I fell in, against my will. 

"Old Goethe . . ." 

"Goethe?" 

"Excuse me, I have to explain. The genius 
of Goethe knew the German people. He 
knew that the whole psychology of the Teu- 
tonic tribes was Mephistophelian philosophy. 
For at the very beginning of his work he had, 
in a letter written to his sister (certainly in 
French), asked himself very seriously, should 
he become 'en diogen'? And later, he made 
one of his most exact conclusions: my people 
are wild, culture will make them crude. In 
order to hinder that, he wrote his ' Faust,' the 
work, which through the long chain of years 
45 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



has interested the brain of the whole world, 
which sought an explanation: the European 
war has come to give one of the most correct. 
As I have said, Goethe had known the 
IMephistophelian spirit of the German nation, 
and feeling its disastrous power, he, the good 
teacher, wrote 'Faust,' as the best example 
of the horror. The Teutons, haughty and fool- 
ish, born with this devil, have taken Goethe's 
work as the way. This way has brought them 
to this day, to the stage of which the Kaiser is 
the manager. The Teutonic nation is Meph- 
istopheles, Bulgaria, Faust, and the Democ- 
racy, Marguerite (on this stage, Serbia). 
Beautiful cast! Eh! Dissatisfied with the 
*weak' Gounod, the Kaiser gave the libretto 
and baton into the hand of Krupp. Look out, 
IVIr. Leader is holding that little baton in the 
air. The opera will begin any minute," ended 
Spale, laughing. 

I looked at him. How fine and handsome 
this man was! The speaking face, burned by 
the sun and wind, expressed his unique spirit, 
will, and energy. The beautiful, dreamy eyes 
full of love and all his flexible, perfect figure 
46 



THE FALL OF NISH 



bursting forth with youth, strength, and life. 
How I loved this friend of mine! I loved his 
keen thought, his vivid, powerful spirit, his 
divine art, his golden heart, his youth, his 
whole life, his friendship. 

God! If he be killed? again darted through 
my head. More than a hundred times this 
thought returned to my brain with still more 
and more torture. 

Although from the time we came to the 
trenches we were watchful, although our guns 
were always ready standing in the loopholes, 
orders now came that we must not sit down. 
The soldiers, leaning against the walls of the 
trench, looked silently through the holes. 

Beginning! Is this land really beginning to 
perish? And help? Seven days ago, after the 
terrible night when Belgrade had fallen, the 
happiest news came to us with the rising of 
the sun. The French were coming ! Nish was 
decorated with French and Serbian flags in 
their honor. The whole country shouted in 
happiness. Serbia was proud and dignified, for 
she took France to her heart. The word came 
that the first regiments would take positions 
47 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



around Pirot. We were foolish with happiness. 
Are the sons of our other country really com- 
ing here? Here, beside us? "Poilu" beside 
the Serbian "ratnik"! Oh, my God! It would 
be too good! Really will the spirit of the 
"Marseillaise" rhjone with the Serbian po- 
etry? Really are the sons of Robespierre, 
Danton, Camille Desmoulins, — are the sons 
of Victor Hugo and Beranger really coming 
to the Serbian barricades? The grenadiers 
from Wagram and Austerlitz? It seemed to 
us that already we heard the magnificent and 
thunderous hymn which shakes the hoary 
mountains: "Allons, enfants!" It seemed to 
us that already we saw their thick columns 
coming down the Toorsko Livadje with a 
tremendous cheering: **Aux armes mes cit- 
oyens!" We felt already the clasp of their 
manly hands, their power, friendship, and 
love, and the poilu's words spoken in his way 
sounded already in our ears: "Nous les 
aurons, quand-meme!" We shivered with 
emotion and happiness. Our hearts were 
bursting from our breasts, and our whole 
being poured out: "Vive la France!" 
48 



THE FALL OF NISH 



Now, alone, silently we were waiting for 
our tragedy. A bitter pride, a steely manli- 
ness, a foolish pleasure, and an irresistible 
desire for death were in the midst of this black 
destiny. Yet some of the soldiers would 
tremble with hope, for still the words are 
being whispered: "The French are coming! 
The French are coming!" 

About one o'clock in the afternoon, some- 
where in the distance, from the left side, boom- 
ing began. Then, immediately, from the 
right. From this moment the booming came 
nearer, more distinct, harsh and terrible fir- 
ing. Soon, it seemed to me as if all the devil- 
ish powers were making the effort to break 
down the gates of hell. Then our cannon 
stormed thunder. The earth shook, the air 
was filled with crashing. The fire, steel, and 
hatred are creeping along every ridge of this 
land. 

At two o'clock in the afternoon the first 
cannon turned toward our positions. The rag- 
ing and whistling shells flew against Strashna- 
Chooka, crashing the stones which rolled into 
the valley. Waiting for a long time for the 
49 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



delight of the first shots, our artillery (two 
batteries which were far behind our trenches) 
began to fire. The shells flew over our heads 
with hissing speed. Oh, good old sound! In 
the beginning, like a thunderous oo, and then 
more and more thin, finally to end in a weak 
boom. The Bulgarian artillery tried to find 
ours : an opposing oo with thunder at its end. 
Soon it became a general chaos of the air. 

"They think to make a short job!" said 
Cheda coolly. 

"At least they are hoping!" I said, shiver- 
ing with emotion in those first moments of 
battle. 

After half an hour of this dreadful booming, 
suddenly a thick black smoke arose behind a 
green hill far in the valley, then a powerful 
detonation. 

"Bravo! Ours have set fire in their am- 
munition wagon," exclaimed the soldiers 
laughing. 

The Bulgarians, in revenge, doubled their 

fire: now with a better method. One part 

was directed on our position and Tzarev-Vrh, 

and the other kept up its rapidity, still seek- 

50 



THE FALL OF NISH 



ing our battery. It began to grow serious. 
The soldiers drew their heads down into their 
shoulders, bowed and grasped their guns con- 
vulsively. The shells were exploding every- 
where around the trench. 

Yet through this booming we heard dis- 
tinctly, dry and clear-cut, uncountable, ick, 

iCfCf ICfCm 

"Our advance post is firing. The Bulga- 
rians are attacking! Look out!" exclaimed 
Cheda. 

I ran to the captain who had chosen my 
trench to be in during the battle because it was 
in the middle. At this moment he was speak- 
ing over the telephone with our advance post, 
which was within five hundred metres of our 
main position: — 

"From the right side of the village.^ Good. 
In case of need you will retreat as I said." 

I looked over the parapet. Nothing but 
smoke was to be seen. The firing of our ad- 
vance post had doubled. The captain did not 
look away from this side. Suddenly the sol- 
diers began to move, and steady themselves. 
The captain grasped the telephone. 
51 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



"Fourth Battery! Fourth! The direction 
slanting Raj ana, right of the village. Try 
with thirty-four hundred metres. Hurry.'* 

WTien I looked over the parapet again, far 
into the valley, the slope of the green hill 
which was level against the sky was now ir- 
regular with human beings. Something black 
and ugly. Something which jumped from bush 
to stone like a frog. 

"Bulgarians!" was shouted here and there. 

A minute after, our artillery poured its 
fire there. The captain with glance fixed upon 
the valley directed with the telephone. The 
Bulgarians, in order to assure their attack, 
had directed all their cannon on our trenches. 
Horrors! Everything around us was broken, 
crushed, and smashed. We grew deaf. It 
seemed as if the earth had lifted into the air. 
The soldiers began to fall. In the midst of 
thunder and chaos, human screams more ter- 
rible than both. The irregular lines came 
closer and closer. The new lines at the top 
appeared and disappeared again and again. 
Our machine guns began to fire. The air was 
vibrant, the earth shivered, the walls of the 
52 



THE FALL OF NISH 



trench fell, burying the legs. Everji^hing was 
boiling. A few minutes later, my captain 
touched my shoulder and said : — 

"It is time!" 

I ran to one side of the trench and Cheda to 
the other. The soldiers, who alone knew the 
** moment," were ready. 

"Quick firing! Eight hundred metres! 
Eight hundred . . ." 

The heads bowed, the faces showed in the 
loopholes. They began. It was as if tumult 
rode on the back of horror. 

From this time our guns never grew cold. 



For five days we fought without stopping. 

It is impossible to describe those days, 
where every moment created new wonders, 
new horrors, new impossibilities, which only at 
the cost of our own blood were overcome. Dur- 
ing the days we were fighting, shooting end- 
lessly, — blinding, deafening, falling, scream- 
ing, killing . . . During the night we worked : 
a feverish work: the work of a soldier and a 
man, for we were still human beings. In these 
53 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



hours of darkness the soldiers with shovels 
and picks repaired that which was destroyed 
during the day; then they took out empty 
ammunition cases and replaced them with 
full; the broken wires of the telephones were 
repaired ; the seriously wounded soldiers were 
carried away. Then they helped the men of 
the machine guns to build new fortifications, 
for the positions had to be changed each night 
because of the enemy's artillery. The guns 
were cleaned by sense of touch. The senti- 
nels of the advance posts were exchanged. 
And all this without a word, without a sound. 
There are men who did not speak for five 
days. 

Then we would satisfy all our human needs. 
When we finished everything, then we would 
eat. Julock would distribute the loaves of 
bread and cold meat: this was all. Bowed, 
sitting close to each other, on the earth of the 
trench, in darkness, we ate our food without 
even a knife. One would suddenly grow 
weak, letting the bread fall from his hand into 
the dirt. Finally, deadly weariness had con- 
quered the human being. And sitting, with 
54 



THE FALL OF NISH 



face leaning against the wet, rough earth, with 
open mouth, he would remain there motionless, 
dead until somebody whispered: "Get up!" 

This night, the sixth one since the battle 
began, again came my turn to go to the ad- 
vance post, — "dead sentinel" as we call it, 
— only three himdred metres from the enemy. 
It is the soldier's sense of smell, the soldier's 
nerve, which feels the slightest movement of 
the enemy. In the case of sudden attack at 
night, the "dead sentinel" dies to save the 
others. 

"Alive, my good one?" I exclaimed to 
Spale whom I had to replace, and who had 
been the whole day at the advance post in a 
terrible battle. I was worried all the afternoon, 
for at noon the telephone connection was 
broken, so that we could not get any news, 
and because of the terrain the little trenches 
of the advance post could not be seen from 
Dobra-Glava. 

"Alive, certainly!" exclaimed Spale, grasp- 
ing my hands. 

" Who was killed.' " I threw out this eternal, 
painful question. 

55 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



**Jare and Speera. Poor men, they were 
killed last night when they replaced each 
other in the sentinel's line, down in that little 
valley. Although both were very careful, be- 
ing at the most dangerous place, yet they were 
killed because of the moonlight. You will see 
later that it is light as the day. The worst is 
that ' they ' again will not dare to gather and 
bury their dead because of that moonlight. 
The little valley is full of them. To-day they 
left eleven corpses. As you can see, not the 
most desirable part of this neighborhood." 

"Not the most. But I do not care, thanks 
to the old rule of war: the nerves are first 
killed, and then the body." 

"You are an exception," said Spale, laugh- 
ing. Then he looked around and sighed 
deeply. "Again there will be a beautiful 
night. How divine are these nights ! Just be- 
cause they are between those horrors . . . but 
I am on my way. I have to go. Good-bye, 
and take care of yourself," he said in a voice 
full of emotion, pressed for the last time my 
hand, and went into the darkness. His sol- 
diers crept after him. 

56 



THE FALL OF NISH 



About midnight the full moon shone just 
over my head, smiling with her bright, good- 
natured face. I was lying outside the trench 
in the thick, deep, dry grass. God, what a 
night ! At her parting, the goddess of fruit and 
autumn, for the last time, kissed the earth 
with her most beautiful caress. Now there 
were many tears mingled with this caress. 
Complete silence reigned. Nothing moved. 
It seemed to me as if a tender, unseen hand 
had spread a golden white silken cover over 
those hills, stones, ruins, corpses, and blood, 
and, hiding them, had transformed all into a 
mystic dream of beauty. I was in a waking 
dream. It was so warm, mild, soft, tender, and 
sweet. My breast had gratefully taken the 
fresh, perfumed air after the dust and smoke 
of the day. My glance wandered over the 
sky, in which the big stars shone beside the 
moon, or it sped here and there through 
the blue-black ether. The little white clouds 
darted around the moon, covering it play- 
fully, as little children around their grand- 
mother. The river which flowed through the 
valley murmured a sad mystic air. 
57 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



And everywhere around me from the earth 
there came little sweet notes which mingled 
in an exquisite hum. The whole of this little 
uncounted world, which lives in the grass and 
earth, all of those millions of little beings, 
frightened by the daily horror, are now whis- 
pering, asking themselves. Will it come again? 
Or, perhaps, they complained and wept for 
their brothers who were killed. Oh, how 
beautiful and sweet was the sorrow of this 
little people! It reminded me of an old Tus- 
can cloister full of peace, twilight, and per- 
fume, in which hovered the divine organ 
music. Yes, it was the night for prayer^ It 
seemed to me that all those armies, divided 
by this beauty of the night, again became in- 
dividuals, as men silently gazing, they opened 
their hearts, looked upon the horrors they 
have made, shivering at the thought that 
when the day comes they must plunge again 
into murder and blood. 

**Fly in!" Cheda exclaimed again from the 
trench. "Can you not see that this is like the 
day? They will kill you like a cat. And that 
with a stone, it is so near." 
58 



THE FALL OF NISH 



I did not listen to him. I heard only the 
word "killed." Killed! Can anybody, in this 
beautiful night, even think of murder? In this 
night when heaven has bent so near this 
earth; in this night, when the soul is full of 
dreams, and the heart so full of love? This 
night is created for love and goodness. It is 
created for confession. When every atom of 
this gigantic nature is full of goodness and 
love, then one's heart grows soft, and the 
confession of a heavy sin could more easily go 
out from a tortured breast. Yet my thoughts 
fled far, far into the blue dreams seeking the 
places which were sometimes the lap of the 
happiness of life. 

Suddenly, in the midst of this silence, this 
beauty, in the midst of this sweet, tender, 
chanting music, a voice, a song! A beautiful 
manly voice on the Bulgarian side is softly 
and sadly singing a song. My God, a Bul- 
garian is singing ! My whole being, intoxicated 
by the sweetness of this night, now fell into 
such an emotion under the influence of this 
voice, this song, that I became oblivious of 
place and reality. Slowly I raised myself, sat 
59 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



down, and, shivering, I drank in the wonder- 
ful tones. What a song! Do I dream? The 
sweet vibration of the song, tenderly mingling 
with the music in the atmosphere, over- 
whelmed me more and more. 

Presently the song became stronger, clearer, 
more passionate, more emotional, a song full 
of tears which had to come from a martyr's 
breast. 

Then I grasped the words: **0h, where are 
you, moments of my happy dreams?'* 

"La Tosca!" I exclaimed loudly. A Mario 
in his last moments, in a sea of most dreadful 
human unhappiness, in darkness, between 
four walls, feeling the sigh of the dead instead 
of the embrace of happy love, seeks, with the 
last shriek of his heart, his happy dreams ! The 
dreams of love! And this Mario now is a Bul- 
garian! A traitor, murderer! No, no, I can- 
not believe it ! And yet the song hovered con- 
stantly, more and more beautiful and more 
and more sad. It was ringing like a confes- 
sion, a confession spoken in the most solemn 
moment of a life in a most touching manner, 
with the divine language of music, the music 
60 



THE FALL OF NISH 



which moved the most stony heart with emo- 
tion. 

"What desires this man, this unhappy 
heart, this Bulgarian?" I asked myself. I 
felt a powerful struggle which surged more 
and more through my being. I can never 
psychologically explain those moments. They 
were too strong, too sudden, too unexpected. 
I felt only as if a strange power had risen, 
with a dreadful right, in my soul, to destroy 
the song, this confession of a murderer, this 
sacrilege of the last beauty of a Serbian dream. 

*'It is not Mario! Lie, lie!" was ringing 
somewhere around me. And yet my heart, in 
extremely emotional, painful throbs, drew me 
toward this voice, this song, this man, mourn- 
fully crying: "Brother, brother! Perhaps the 
only one!" 

Something snapped within me, and sud- 
denly, without knowing myself how, under 
the pressure of a strong bitterness, pain, and 
sadness, the hopeless answer came from my 
breast: "And never the moment of happiness 
will come again!" 

When the last notes of the song died, the 
61 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



silence of a tomb fell. I did not know myself. 
Why was I so cruel.? Perhaps it was really a 
brother. The brother who had been waiting 
for forty years for the Serbian embrace. Per- 
haps he is the only one who, under the dread- 
ful sin and misery of his nation, under the 
slavery and unhappiness of his people, in this 
wonderful night has been awakened by a 
higher spirit and seeks forgiveness. Forgive- 
ness! Is it possible, is it attainable? His 
father and his brother will kill my mother and 
sister to-morrow and drag out the Serbian 
heart. The work has only begun and is not 
yet finished. When it is done, then perhaps 
the dead ones, the ruins will forgive . . . then 
perhaps . . . 

"Ma, forgive me, bratko!"^ came again in 
the bright and quiet night, so sad and so 
tenderly. A Bulgarian is begging for for- 
giveness, freed by the irresistible spirit of this 
beautiful night. Being freed from Gessler's 
claws, the Bulgarian soldier, again a man, a 
free being, with deadly horror measured the 

* A national Macedonian song of the allied Serbian and Bul- 
garian komitajic. 

62 



THE FALL OF NISH 



weight of his sin, and so, perhaps, for the first 
and last time, falls on his knees before the 
dying people which he had, only a few hours 
ago, nailed on the cross. 

"Forgive me, bratko!" Again those cries 
fled through the silent night seeking answer. 
I suffered terribly. Unhappiness, pain, horror 
gathered slowly in the human heart, crowd- 
ing it with an indescribable pressure. Yet 
they do not burn, they do not destroy the 
soul. For a sudden little moment can create 
this. In this moment I was now. The song, 
this spark, had set on fire the unhappiness 
of my soul. I no longer realized what was 
happening around me. I entirely forgot the 
place in which I was. I was standing at full 
height forgetting my danger. Something drew 
me forward toward the voice, the song. Here 
was another unhappy one, and, perhaps, an 
embrace. My trembling legs made a few 
steps. Cheda jumped to my side. 

"Unhappy one, where? Bulgarian lie!" 
harshly said this old warrior, whose bitter 
experience spoke rightly, this unhappy Ser- 
bian who knew full well the reality. 
63 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



This brought me to my senses. I stooped 
unwillingly. The song had died away. The 
beauty of the night had changed into reality, 
the light of the moon cruelly showed the hor- 
ror around me, and suddenly I saw clearly 
the masses of the dead spreading on all sides. 
The flame of unhappiness which had burned 
for a moment in my soul had destroyed my 
feelings. There was left only the thought, the 
brain, the cold judge who pitilessly tore into 
the ruins and wounds of a heart. 

" Yes, yes, my unhappy brother," I thought 
as I looked into this valley of the dead, "the 
blood between you and me, the blood of our 
fathers, the black precipice of hate created 
by the 'foreign influence,' does not permit us 
to embrace each other. Unhappy man! You 
are more unhappy than myself, for to-mor- 
row when you rejoice over the victory, you 
will know that you are celebrating it with the 
price of bought souls, and with an eternal 
sign of treachery on your forehead before God 
and men. You will know when you take the 
Serbian heart in 'glorious' victory, you, born 
democrat, will meet face to face with an aris- 
64 



THE FALL OF NISH 



tocrat, who will throw you on your knees to 
lick his feet. Miserable brother, I like better 
my tragedy than your victory." 

Slowly I went down into the trench and re- 
mained quiet the entire night with my fore- 
head on my knees. " My only brother ! " came 
often into my mind like a sad shadow. "What 
a misery of time! Man alone, democrat and 
brother, in a mass, murderer and slave of aris- 
tocrats." 

The next day there was a dreadful battle. 
At the north Petrovatz had fallen. The Ser- 
bians were now attacked directly in the back. 
The Bulgarians were advancing from Nego- 
tin. Their dream of connecting themselves 
with the Germans was now realized. Intox- 
icated by this news and with brandy, they 
made foolish, stormy assaults, sowing per- 
sistently the corpses to the glory of the Kai- 
ser. In the morning I had to retreat to the 
main position. During the day the Bulga- 
rians stormed seven times through the valley 
and, decimated, fled howling back. Finally, 
at five o'clock in the evening, the fourth com- 
pany of my battalion, supported by our fire 
65 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



and the machine guns, made an assault and 
cleared out the whole terrain up to the border. 
Spale went with soldiers to retake our ad- 
vance post. 

The next night, twenty-four hours after, 
Spale returned, came to my trench, and gave 
me a card. 

"When we were coming back from our ad- 
vance post we found an officer who had been 
killed. His chest was like a sieve from bullets. 
Beside other things we found his 'carte de 
visite.' " 

I took the card, lit a match, and read: 
"Mircha Traichev, Cand. Phil. — Paris." 

"France brought him up!" I exclaimed. 

" Yes. Certainly he was your brother about 
whom you told me. Maybe, perhaps, you 
killed him," said Spale. 

"Maybe," I scarcely whispered. 



We have been since yesterday in the regi- 
ment's reserve. 

The third company had replaced us after 
eight days of battle. On this occasion we saw 
66 



THE FALL OF NISH 



Bata, who was in that company, and who, 
when he saw us alive and well, jumped for 
joy. As much as he was joyful, so we were 
sad, for now had come the time for him to go 
down into the "hole." 

In that time the reserve was considered a 
rest. Rest! Should such a word be spoken 
nowadays? A single company in reserve for 
a regiment which was spread over a stretch 
of eight miles! And what a terrain, too! If 
there is danger for Strashna-Chooka we must 
run to help for more than six miles over terri- 
ble hills of sharp stones and cliffs. And if the 
Bulgarians, in order to surround my entire 
regiment, menace Odorovski-Prelaz, the pass 
of Veedlich, we had to fly right toward the 
sky; and after such a run immediately go into 
battle. Beautiful prospect! 

Added to all this the rain began to fall, the 
cold and endless rain of autumn. That night 
was the last of the fair weather. Among these 
mountains there is no slow, mild change from 
summer to winter. Yesterday morning all the 
peaks around were dressed in white covers. 
On the heights snow, and in the valley rain. 
67 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



Winter! The winter was coming, and its 
hardships completed the national tragedy. 
The source of sickness and hunger had opened 
its crater, pouring its poison over the un- 
happy ones. 

We set up our tents in a small field near 
the village church. The heavy rain poured un- 
ceasingly. One could scarcely move through 
the deep mud. Added to all our other bur- 
dens we had twenty more pounds to carry on 
our boots after a few steps. The soldiers were 
sitting under the tents close to each other, in 
full equipment, with their guns across their 
laps, for any moment the order might come to 
go. Or they were gathered around the big 
kettle in which the cooks had prepared the 
dinner, or warmed themselves around the fire, 
breathing the hot steam of the food. They 
were happy because, perhaps, to-day they will 
have something hot. 

The captain, Spale, and I went inside a 
near-by house to find shelter from the rain 
and to " sleep." The house had only one room 
with an ogneeshte — fireplace — in the mid- 
dle of it. Over the fireplace, a large hole full 
68 



THE FALL OF NISH 



of ashes, was a big dark chimney full of 
smoked meat. An old woman was sitting in 
a corner of the jfireplace, silent, motionless. 
Her face was covered with black wTinkles 
and her bare feet were in the ashes. She was 
the only protector of the house and sheep 
(the inhabitants of this mountainous region 
live exclusively on sheep). The other mem- 
bers of the family, women and children, had 
fled, and the men were in the military service. 
The sheep, for there was no one to take them 
to the pastures, were crowded in the back 
yard, wet through and through, and steam- 
ing from their own heat. They were bleating 
sadly, seeking their food and liberty. 

When we came to the village (Rjana) which 
the staff of the regiment still occupied, we 
again heard black news. The Bulgarians had 
taken Zajechar. Now they were connected 
with the German armies ; both were advancing 
rapidly, using the parallel strategic flank 
movements. German cannon and ammuni- 
tion had been brought to the entire Bulgarian 
front. The Austrians had taken lludnik and 
were menacing Kragujevatz. The people 
69 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



were flying from everywhere. Hunger began 
to manifest itself. Typhus was again raging. 
Yet our armies were retreating in good order, 
setting on fire and destroying everything, 
doing heroic work in order to gain time to 
allow the people to fly. Where? Destiny re- 
plied, when after one month they struck with 
their foreheads the frozen stones of Albania. 
The general impression was that the armies 
around Pirot had to maintain their position 
at any cost to prevent the armies from the 
north reaching the same height (Nish), so 
that the danger of being surrounded would 
cease. Would we succeed in this.'' 

To-day the Bulgarians had left our posi- 
tions in peace. For the last two days a great 
change had been evident in the tactics of 
the Bulgarians; while before, they were as- 
saulting as if insane, losing their lives like 
chaff in an attempt to seize Basarski-Kamen 
through the valley, howling like beasts for 
this key of the gate of Nish; yet in spite of 
their wild heroism they had not gained a single 
foot. Now they left the valley and struck in 
another way: over Batooshin, to take Odo- 
70 



THE FALL OF NISH 



rovski Pass, surround my regiment, and ad- 
vancing over Veedlich, hold the whole Sec- 
ond Army in checkmate. It could be seen at 
once that the German strategists (really the 
summa summarum of their Kultur) were di- 
recting the wildness of the foolish Bulgarians. 
While before, their artillery was a joke to us, 
now it became perfect. Krupp's pupils were 
now playing on these instruments. And with 
these weapons they began to carry out their 
new plan. The valley was quiet, but at Veed- 
lich, high up toward the sky, there was fury. 
And sitting beside a fire we looked through the 
open door at this storm over the white peaks. 

"Will the Twentieth Regiment hold out?" 
Spale broke the silence. . 

"What's the use?" said Cheda bitterly. 

"To get time, fool that you are, to save the 
other armies and the people. We are to be 
killed," said the captain darkly. He was sit- 
ting beside the fire breathing heavily and 
painfully. Once in a while he coughed. A 
dreadful rattling, a terrible noise, came from 
his breast. God ! how that man had suffered ! 
When he coughed, the old woman would stir 
71 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



a little in her stiffness, lift her head, look upon 
him long and silently, turn her contorted face 
toward him with eyes from which the light 
had gone out. Then she would slowly bow her 
head and sigh: "Ey! kookoo mene!" 

Outside the night began to fall. The rain 
had doubled in intensity and was raging. At 
Veedlich the battle still thundered. We were 
silent, while the fire crackled; its flame made 
large, mysterious pictures from the shadows 
on the white walls. The sheep in the back 
yard bleated more loudly and plaintively. 
Thus the night passed. 

In the morning a thick, icy fog had covered 
everything. Nothing could be seen anywhere. 
The rain had ceased, but everything was cold 
and wet. Sitting beside the kettle waiting 
for the tea to be ready, we mutely listened 
to the booming at Veedlich which had not 
diminished. 

"Am I mistaken, or is it really so.'^ The 
firing is much nearer," said a soldier stamp- 
ing his feet in the mud. 

It seemed the same to me. I could not 
know the truth, for the captain was in the 
72 



THE FALL OF NISH 



regimental staff. We again grew silent and 
listened. The firing was really moving closer 
and closer to the pass. An hour after it was 
in the same line as our trenches and the valley, 
only four thousand feet higher. 

*' What's the captain doing .^" I asked 
impatiently. 

I was worried. I ordered the soldiers, who 
had drunk their tea, to be ready. They tight- 
ened up their cartridge belts, slung their guns 
over their shoulders, and stood in the mud 
silently, with their hands in their pockets. 
The tents remained up, yellow, wet, and sad 
in the midst of the black mud. Later the 
firing grew entirely distinct. It seemed to be 
at the edge of Veedlich. 

All of a sudden the captain ran in and ex- 
claimed : — 

"Lift them!" 

The soldiers ran toward the tents, and in 
the clap of a hand the tents were pulled down 
and folded. Wet and stiff the soldiers pain- 
fully lifted them on their shoulders. 

"What is it, Meele.^" I asked tlie captain 
who stood quietly, but pale. 
73 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



"Simple. Profiting by the fog they have 
taken Golemi-Vrh. Many positions at Batoo- 
shin are surrounded. The Twentieth Regi- 
ment is retreating. Our second battalion, 
which was in the reserve of the division, 
was sent to help. The situation is dreadful. 
Hurry up. hurry up! Are you ready? Fol- 
low!" cried this man and went as if he were 
not bearing a terrible sickness in his breast. 

The soldiers ran after him, slipping in the 
mud, and still tightening their equipments. 
I shall never forget the run through this val- 
ley full of small slippery, muddy hills, and 
the climb up the steep side which lifted to- 
ward the sky. The sweat ran from our burn- 
ing bodies, our mouths parched dry, our 
tongues swelled, our breath was gone. A 
hundred times we fell, yet we hurried for- 
ward. After an hour and a half we came near 
the top, near the pass. 

The most dreadful thing was, that we knew 
nothing: neither where the Bulgarians were, 
nor how far the Twentieth Regiment had re- 
treated. Are the Bulgarians already at the 
pass? If they are there, then the end comes 
74 



THE FALL OF NISH 



for my company, for they could dash us dow n 
the precipice with stones; and yet absolutely 
we had to resist them in order to save our 
regiment from the jaws of the trap. Luck 
came when the wind swept away the fog. 
Again we could see around. As we came closer 
and closer to the pass, we could hear more dis- 
tinctly the storm that raged above us. 

For a moment it happened that Spale was 
beside me. We looked at each other. All our 
life, all our love, all our inseparable friend- 
ship, was lying in this glance. In those mo- 
ments destiny was deciding pitilessly about 
the life of a human being, the being who 
loved and was loved the most. What inde- 
scribable pain in this farewell of two friends, 
who for sixteen years had been together, and 
in whose childish hearts love had taken deep 
root. 

"I feel some terrible thing, my little one!" 
said Spale, who was bathed in sweat, pale, 
shivering, and breathing heavily. 

*' Foolishness! Old fool as you are," I said, 
trying to joke and smile, although I myself 
felt a tremendous pain in my breast. 
75 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



"No, no, it Is not foollstness. I never felt 
this before when I was going into battle. 
Something which . , . You see I am all shiv- 
ering." And he grasped my hand which he 
pressed convulsively. Then slowly he began 
to whisper : — 

"If I am going to be kil . . .'* 

"Stop!" I exclaimed, at the limit of my 
strength. 

WTien we came near to the top, the com- 
pany halted. The soldiers who remained 
behind, or had fallen, continued to come up. 
The captain called to me: — 

"Take ten soldiers, go to the top, and see 
what the matter is. It seems to me that they 
are not yet at the pass. Be careful." 

Ten minutes later I was in front of three 
gigantic holes, wliich opened on the plateau 
of Batooshln. The tremendous rocks reared 
into the sky, making a fearsome scene. I was 
trembling. I went ahead from stone to stone, 
expecting every moment to hear the ugly 
chak-chok whistle raging beside my ear and to 
see the unkempt head which was laughing be- 
hind a stone. But this "pleasure" had not 
76 



THE FALL OF NISH 



happened even when I reached the top. When 
I first glanced at the endless Batooshin, I ex- 
claimed in joy. On the round plateau stretched 
a gigantic tongue, made from hills and 
trenches, whose thicker end was on the Bul- 
garian side. The tongue was covered with 
black masses which moved toward its end. Be- 
tween the pass and the tongue was a large val- 
ley with a stream of white stones in the mid- 
dle of it. In the front of the tip of the tongue 
were other black masses which moved and 
arranged themselves in order. And between 
those black masses, smoke, whistle, booming. 
From the left side of the pass, from Golemi- 
Vrh, from the sky, the Bulgarians came down 
slowly, hiding themselves behind the stones. 
After a while my captain came, and for a few 
moments looked around at the situation. 

"^Vhy, that is not at all so bad. And I had 
thought that we should fly at each other's 
throats right away! Now, two platoons to 
remain here and open fire immediately at 
Batooshin. Those from Golemi-Vrh are dan- 
gerous. You will go for them with two other 
platoons. You know . . . to-day is the chance 
77 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



. . . where is the telephone?" he asked a cor- 
poral whom he sent to find it. 

"An officer from the Twentieth has an 
observation post right here," said the cor- 
poral. 

"Good. Golemi-Vrh is a beautiful mark 
for the artillery from the valley. I am going 
to order action immediately. Spale, your 
platoon there. Trailo, behind those stones. 
Cheda, try to catch the connection with the 
Twentieth. Is the ammunition coming?" 
cried this wonderful man, running to all 
sides. 

I arranged two platoons in a battle line, 
sent patrols, and went toward Golemi-Vrh. 
I halted my soldiers at a stony hillside, which 
was an excellent position, for in front of it 
there was a little precipice, at three hundred 
metres in front of the Bulgarians. We chose 
the best stones. And exactly in the same mo- 
ment when I opened fire, those at the pass 
opened also. It was near noon. 

A dreadful storm began. In recalling this 
gigantic battle I feel that all words are weak 
and ineffective to describe it. It was a battle 
78 



THE FALL OF NISH 



of life and death, the battle of fanatical wild 
men, intoxicated by the glory of victory, who 
were running, ragingly, to seize Basarski- 
Kamen, to throw themselves between Pas- 
jacha and Malich Mountains, to take Nish 
and surround three hundred thousand Ser- 
bian soldiers; the battle of desperate de- 
fenders of their fathers, mothers, brothers, 
and sisters, dying willingly, bathing them- 
selves in their own blood, performing won- 
ders; they were accomplishing this holy task. 
Life became a price with which was bought a 
new moment of liberty. 

When I opened fire, the Bulgarians (a com- 
pany of two hundred and seventy men) in 
front of my soldiers stopped, astonished. 
Certainly they did not expect us. In a second 
they dropped behind the stones and poured 
out their fire. God, were ever there such mo- 
ments! Shooting on a stony place is a hun- 
dred times more terrible than on a common 
field, for the stones, smashed by bullets, fly 
into faces, cutting and stabbing them, wound- 
ing hands, digging out eyes. 

Five minutes later our artillery in the val- 
79 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



ley began to act. We did not hear the boom- 
ing or whistling, but suddenly the shells were 
exploding among the Bulgarians, making 
havoc. After a few moments the Bulgarians 
went ahead. New masses were rolling down 
from Golemi-Vrh. A question was in the air. 
A question of the selfish destiny which hov- 
ered between those two lines. I grasped it. 
It was the question of speed. Our artillery 
must shoot quickly so as to smash the masses 
of the enemy before they gained ground, or 
the Bulgarians would, with their quick for- 
ward movements, avoid this catastrophe, 
reach my position, annihilate my soldiers, and 
take the pass. I trembled in my whole body. 
I looked around me . . . for a moment I lost 
my presence of mind. Instantly after I called 
my orderly : — 

"Run to the captain and say to him that 
the Bulgarians are advancing, and that the 
only help is the artillery, which must wipe 
out from my position to the top of Golemi- 
Vrh. Run!" 

The soldier ran away. 

Everywhere around was boiling, shaking, 
80 



THE FALL OF NISH 



destruction. The horrible booming became 
the only sound, the heavy, gloomy sound 
which struck upon our heads. The men were 
falling. How they screamed . . . and above, 
the laughter of death. I felt that something 
gigantic was developing around me: some- 
thing which will enter into history. 

In front of my position were smoke, white 
dust, and blood; suddenly another sound 
broke this heavy, gloomy one, much more hor- 
rible and unsupportable. It was a human 
howl. The black masses had lifted themselves 
from behind the rocks and were running to- 
ward my side. The Bulgarians had gone 
ahead to solve the question. I straightened 
myself. An imperative power made me 
straighten. Heads and breasts appeared 
amidst the white dust and smoke. IVIy sol- 
diers had also raised themselves. Those are 
giants, ready for everything. Do you seek 
men, animals.'* Here they are. My soldiers 
fired with indescribable speed, imaginable 
only in a dream. Men were falling, making 
a dreadful curve as they fell. That which re- 
mained was only an ugly red mass of heads 
81 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



on the stones. The Bulgarians were coming 
closer. We felt their breath, and the filthy and 
pestilent sound splashed in our faces. To die! 
rang through my head, and I felt a powerful 
delight. Those moments are inexplicable. 
They are here . . . 

Just a moment! Suddenly, in the midst of 
this booming, of these howls and shrieks, this 
ferocious readiness to fight and tear our flesh, 
to die, we heard a quick pattering. With the 
utmost rapidity, seeing my evident destruc- 
tion, the captain had sent my two machine 
guns. Help! Rescue! From where? From 
here, behind those stones, from these valleys, 
from these forests and mountains, from this 
breast, from this land, from my country. 
Here, my brothers are fighting and dying; 
they help each other and die again . . . the 
spirit of poetry, the spirit of Serbia, has be- 
come a reality, which accomplishes wonders. 

WTien the machine guns began to fire, my 
soldiers jumped, and straightened themselves 
completely, magnificent as the giants in the 
old songs of ours. 

"You are sentenced to death, gentlemen 
82 



THE FALL OF NISH 



Bulgarians!" I exclaimed, as if intoxicated. 
Our artillery, knowing now exactly the posi- 
tions, worked with the speed and force of an 
ocean storm. The howling black mass is fall- 
ing now . . . God, I never saw so much torn 
flesh! Pressed, crushed, divided into small 
parts, these three hundred men became in- 
sane beasts which bit their own flesh. A 
glance upon my soldiers: proud, erect, splen- 
did, bareheaded, giving their breasts, were 
the fighters for liberty. And suddenly, as 
one man, powerful and thunderous, echoed, 
piercing the boiling air : — 

Aoy, Kayka, what a load I carry! 

Your mother's sorrow, now how can you marry? 

Ee, yoo, yoo, brides are few, 
Ee, yoo, yoo, brides are few, 
They keep the ones they'd promised you. 

Soldiers, mother, see the guns they carry! 
They'll save us and come back and I shall marry! 

Ee, yoo, yoo, brides are few, 
Ee, yoo, yoo, brides are few, 
They keep the ones they'd promised you. 

I thought my heart would break with emo- 
tion and pride, true happiness, with love for 
83 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



these men, for these Serbian peasants, who 
do not know what the word "democracy" 
means, but who create it and write it with 
their own blood. 

This black mass tried to gather itself for 
the last time, but stricken with a deadly hor- 
ror, it became insane, and disheartened, 
turned its back. 

"Powerful Tsar's armies are flying!" I was 
laughing. "But a painful road is that of 
safety, over stones, over sharp rocks and 
corpses, over the tainted foolish heads, which 
are buried in the depths of precipices." 

Our artillery had covered every foot, shat- 
tered every stone, and smashed every single 
being. The devil himself could not live there! 

A thunderous "Oorah!" vibrated and 
sounded everywhere, mingling with the song 
of my soldiers. I looked into the valley and 
at Batooshin. In the valley the men were 
fighting, hand to hand, over the white stones, 
killing pitilessly. And there, far over the tip 
of the tongue, four long lines were advancing, 
and before them, the Bulgarians were rolling, 
fighting, fleeing like hounds. Black spots upon 
84 



THE FALL OF NISH 



the gray rocks remained deathly still behind 
those four lines, eight hundred and sixty in 
number. Those in the valley had lifted their 
hands into the air. 

Victory ! Victory ! rang in my heart. Again 
a few moments of liberty were bought for 
this nation. At four o'clock all of Batooshin 
was retaken. The Twentieth Regiment went 
back to its old positions. 

I remained at my place as "dead sentinel" 
before Golemi-Vrh, which no longer belonged 
to Bulgaria or to Serbia, but to death. During 
the night the Twentieth conquered the pro- 
prietor. When darkness began to fall, a 
frightened and embarrassed soldier came to 
me and said : — 

"Lieutenant, the captain has ordered that 
Cheda remain with the soldiers and you are 
to come to him instantly." His voice was 
sad, low, and uncertain, and his lips quivered. 

"Why?" I asked him, astonished. 

"I don't know ... I beg you, don't ask 
me," gasped the unhappy man. 

A premonition of something terrible passed 
over me. W' hat ! After this victory, after this 
85 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



excitement, after this joy, unhappiness to 
come immediately! 

"Speak, speak!" I exclaimed, grasping the 
soldier's hand. 

He looked at me, and his eyes filled with 
tears and his breast heaved. He wanted to 
speak to me, but could only swallow some- 
thing in his throat which suffocated him. He 
tore his hand from my clasp and ran away. 
Why tears? I questioned. Whom does this 
unhappy soul grieve for? Why now? Sud- 
denly I screamed, staggered, lost my sight, 
kneeled, and grew weak. 

Spale, Spale! flashed through my head, and 
a power lifted me and gave me new strength. 
I ran over the stones. That which I never, 
never dared even to think had come true — 
he whom my heart so loved! 

"Spale, Spale!" I cried, as if insane. I ran 
over the sharp rocks falling, bleeding. 

I stopped. On an overcoat Spale was lying. 
My Spale! O God, why this stroke? A large 
white bandage was bound over his stomach. 
His clothes, torn, ragged, and bloody, had 
been cut from his body, and were scattered 
86 



THE FALL OF NISH 



around. His breast was rising and falling 
... so slowly. 

"Alive!" screamed something within me. 

His eyes were closed . . . the face yellow 
and green, mouth wide open. The captain 
was kneeling beside him, looking fixedly at a 
spot, all his body convulsed by a terrible 
cough. 

I felt as if I swayed, as if I could not stand 
any longer. I felt my consciousness going. 

"Where is he wounded?" I asked with my 
last strength. 

The captain raised his head slowly. His 
face was black, his eyes sunken . . . and said, 
with a killing pain: — 

"In the spine. The legs are already dead." 

"In the spine," I screamed, and fell beside 
him. 



Lightning after lightning, thunder after 
thunder, a deluge of rain, the like of which I 
never saw in my life; wind, storm, tempest, a 
night of Stygian darkness; the fury and cruelty 
of raging nature which was at the height of its 
87 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



wildness and power. Sucti was the night when 
my company, the last one, left the town of 
Pirot. 

The order for general retreat had come three 
days after the battle and victory at Batooshin 
and Odorovski Pass. We had to retreat even 
though the Bulgarians had not taken a single 
foot of this whole sector of Pirot, even though 
they, before the Second Army, which was at 
this position, had lost more than twenty 
thousand men. Yet by the game of destiny 
and the rule of ten to one, we were compelled 
to retreat. The Germans had taken Uzice, 
Jagodina, Parachin, Svilajnac, half of Serbia, 
and were advancing toward Krushevatz and 
Kralevo. The Bulgarians at the north had 
taken Aleksinatz and Derven, at the south, 
Vranye, Veles, Skople (Uskub), cutting the 
main railroad line, dividing the whole coun- 
try into two parts. It was the whole meaning 
of Serbian misery. Now came the danger of 
our being cut off, and so we had to retreat. 
Literally this country was surrounded, pressed 
by fire, steel, wildness, and hatred. Yet the 
Serbian people still fought, with indescrib- 
88 



THE FALL OF NISH 



able courage, coolness, and pride, on the 
bloody barricade of their liberty. 

At eight o'clock we left our last positions 
and passed through Pirot. The towTi had 
died; no lights, not a single soul; a town of 
horror-land, or of the dead. Only the wind 
and storm shrieked between the silent little 
houses. When the lightning flashed, with its 
tremendous reddish-green light, we saw, for 
an instant, how the flood of icy water splashed 
the white walls. This ice-cold water dashed 
through our clothes and ran toward our 
hearts. 

We met the Fourth Battery, the cannon 
which were always with my battalion, out- 
side of the town. Those four cannon, our 
inseparable friends, our lovers, who had 
saved our lives already a hundred times, now 
went with my whole battalion, two com- 
panies ahead and two at the rear, for the Bul- 
garians might attack us at any moment in the 
darkness and storm. If that happened, we 
had to die with those friends. 

The storm reached its height of violence. 
The lightnings crossed each other upon the 
89 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



black and heavy clouds and fell and mingled 
with the drenched earth. We were almost 
entirely blinded by these flashes; we lost every 
feeling, every trace even of a sense, whose 
name is sight. We went ahead by instinct, 
and, perhaps, by habit. The terrible menacing 
roll of the thunder ran through the black at- 
mosphere. The rain fell as if poured from the 
clouds. Really, it seemed as if the whole 
heavy air was filled with icy water which 
moved and ran, before the foolish will of 
the raging wind. We were wet through and 
through. The freezing water poured into our 
necks and ran down our backs like the cold 
slime of a poison serpent. After a while we 
became stiffened and the swollen skin, from 
which the dirt peeled off, grew more and more 
insensible. We walked through something 
which was soft and deep, and which was icy 
cold and moved beneath our feet. 

I went with Bata, as the whole battalion 
was together. Once in a while we would touch 
each other and grasp hold so as not to lose 
each other, or we would hold each other when 
one of us staggered in the wind, or from sleep- 
90 



THE FALL OF NISH 



iness or stumbling through water and mud. 
We were going silently. It was impossible to 
talk and equally impossible even to smoke. I 
knew that he, as myself, had but one thought 
— Spale. Oh, my God ! No, no, I cannot, I 
will not, make peace with the thought that 
this man, this soul, this artist, this friend, is 
now dying. Since I knew myself I have loved 
this friend whom I called Spale, more than 
myself. His beautiful eyes had looked upon 
me with childlike, innocent, and happy smiles 
through the bright, hopeful glance of boy- 
hood, and through the tears of a man who is 
suffering from tl^e unhappiness created among 
our people. Friend ! One who has been in the 
battles, who has felt the bony embrace of 
death, who has bled, who has hungered, who 
has suffered superhuman pain, knows what 
this word means, knows what an angelical 
being is described by it. In such a time 
a friend is everything, father, mother, and 
brother, and happy life. After the horrors 
the glances meet each other, the hands grasp 
each other, and one feels so, so good. Spale, 
beside his friendship, carried in his heart the 
91 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



divine art for which we both lived. And now 
all this is dying in Cele-Koola, one of the 
many hospitals in Nish. 

"He must die" was ringing in my whole 
being endlessly, causing such bitter pain 
that it would be folly trying to describe it. 
But one thing we knew very well, Bata and 
I, we must see him for the last time. 

We went on and on for a long time, bent 
forward, fighting with the wind, and without 
rest. The horrors of the weather were not 
lessening. It began to be so dreadful, so ter- 
rible as to be insane. Our clothes became 
heavy as lead, clinging to, and chafing our 
skin. Although we could not feel, we knew 
that it was bitten and bleeding. The water 
flowed over the road. We stepped up to our 
knees at times in the water which ran so 
swiftly as to tax our strength. When the light- 
ning flashed, we would stand aghast at see- 
ing where we were. 

Presently we began to meet strange beings. 

By the lightning we saw that many were 

in small groups, and that they were little, 

and that they staggered, and that they were 

9^ 



THE FALL OF NISH 



falling. Then through the wind and rain we 
heard frightened exclamations, screams, and 
moans. Now they were everywhere among 
the soldiers. We felt that they were reach- 
ing out for us. 

"Who are these?" I asked Bata loudly. 

"Children," he replied. 

"Children!" I exclaimed, frightened. 

I came closer to one of the little creatures. 
When the lightning flashed, I saw that it was 
not a child, but an old man. A little cheecha, 
with a blanket thrown over his head and arms 
outstretched, trying to hold himself balanced. 

"From where are those children?" I asked 
when the thunder ceased to roll. 

"Don't ask," came to me an angry, pain- 
ful voice and grew silent. But the cheecha 
staggered and clutched at me in order to keep 
from falling. I took him by his hand. Again 
the words began to fly : — 

"Order . . . came that all children . . . from 
twelve to eighteen . . . fly . . . fly, boga me 
. . . know not . . . where ..." 

"The order came two weeks ago. Why are 
you so late?" I said. 

93 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



"Came . . . but you don't know where 
Dojknica ... is ... In the mountains . . . far 
. . . desert, in sky. Then those children were 
*out' . . . with sheep . . . far ... we had to 
gather them . . . painfully. Then we had to 
kill ... to butcher all the sheep . . . thousands 
. . . sorrows and pains for . . . they were all 
our fortune . . . mal . . . you know it yourself 
... to skin them . . . that the Bulgarians 
might not find the wool ... we burned them 
. . . much work . . . unhappiness ... we could 
not earlier ..." 

The words of this unhappy one came brok- 
enly through the wind and rain. Suddenly I 
felt that he grasped my hand closely, that his 
face was near to mine, and he exclaimed in a 
heart-rending voice: — 

" Where are we going? " 

I did not reply to him. Only it came to me 
to embrace him and to weep. 

After a time we saw lights through the 

night and rain. It was a large old han.^ Red 

smoke poured out through the big broken 

windows, for many fires were burning inside, 

* A very large, old, one-roomed inn by the highway. 

94 



THE FALL OF NISH 



around which black shadows were crowding. 
Outside the han an immense throng of men, 
soldiers, women, children, horses, wagons, 
cannon, oxen, and sheep were moving and 
shifting in the darkness and rain. Screams, 
shouts, moans of children, and breathing of 
cattle came from it. When Bata and I fin- 
ally got into the han, the acrid smoke bit our 
eyes. The han was jammed with soldiers, 
men, women, children, horses, and sheep. 
And many fires were burning on the ground. 
Around these were gathered pitiful crowds 
from which the water dripped and ran into 
the fires. The women were standing around 
them holding their screaming little ones. 
Children were lying near the walls in the 
water and mud quivering with pain and moan- 
ing piteously, trampled by the sheep. The 
soldiers, silent, dark, and stiff, were squatted 
beside the fires with hands outstretched, pay- 
ing no attention to the hoofs of the horses 
which were at their backs. A woman stood 
beside me. Her wet hair clung against her 
dark and quivering face, and to her dress from 
which the water ran. She was holding a little 
95 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



child in her deathly tired arms, pressing it un- 
consciously to her wet and icy breast. The 
child, whose thin wet clothes clung to his lit- 
tle legs, was screaming with the last screams 
of exhaustion when there is no sound but a 
gasp of death. A convulsive shiver passed 
over him for the last time. He grasped with 
his last tiny strength his mother's ice-cold 
breast in his little hands. 

"O God, what sin have I done?" whispered 
this mother, looking upon her child. 

"Let us go from here," I said to Bata, and 
we went out into the darkness, cold, rain, and 
horror. 

Thus Serbia had fled . . . The man who 
created this bears the name of Wilhelm II von 
Hohenzollern, and millions are exclaiming: 
"Hoch der Kaiser!" 

After two days of retreat we stopped at the 
positions of Shpaya which were near the town 
of Bela-Palanka. These positions had de- 
fended the entrance of the caiion between 
the Pasjacha and Malich Mountains which 
comes out into the valley of Nish. Again the 
old game. Now, in order that the armies from 
96 



THE FALL OF NISH 



the north, and especially the combined army 
which retreated from Aleksintz, should not 
be surrounded, in case the Bulgarians should 
pass earlier through this canon, again we had 
to hold the positions. We were told that there 
was a need for twenty-four hours' delay. To 
secure this, twenty thousand men made an 
assault, driving the enemy for six miles. The 
battle was dreadful, persistent, wild, without 
any pity, without anything which could be 
prescribed to a man. There I saw how the 
black hands tore out throats, how the yellow 
teeth sank into flesh. There I saw how a Bul- 
garian struck the knife into the breast and 
jumped from one side to the other of his vic- 
tim, holding firmly the handle in his fist, so 
that the knife would turn in the wound. 
There my captain reached the culmination of 
his unhappiness: he was only wounded; his 
left leg was crushed. 

One night, after two days of this unparal- 
leled butchery, we were near Nichka-Banya, 
a place two miles from the town of Nish. Two 
battalions of my regiment remained at Chegar 
and other positions as an advanced post, for 
97 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



defense. At three o'clock after midnight, two 

other battalions, mine and the second, were 

to retreat, and the other two in the morning. 

Those will be the last soldiers to pass through 

Nish. 

* * * 

After a long search and wandering through 
an immense building, full of screams, dark- 
ness, smell, and moaning, of dreadful shadows 
creeping near the walls of the corridors, Bata 
and I finally stood before a black door. On it 
was written with white chalk, "Moribun- 
dus," half rubbed out. 

"Here it is," scarcely whispered Bata. 

"Certainly he must die!" again struck my 
heart, for I knew from experience who came 
to the room with this inscription, and I felt 
as if something hot, ugly, and rough had 
clenched my throat. 

Bata slowly opened the door . . . 

Twilight, sweet, tender, rosy light; moan- 
ing, painful exclamations, smell of tobacco 
and flowers! We stopped before the door 
silent and aghast. Suddenly from a corner 
came a happy, exalted voice: — 
98 



THE FALL OF NISH 



"Here, here, here I am!" We ran toward 
that voice. 

Two outstretched, trembling arms, two 
beautiful, shining, but sunken, eyes, a happy 
smile upon the pale lips, were all that re- 
mained to a human being, with which to greet 
his friends. We grasped those two hands, the 
hands which had created divine works, we 
pressed them, and remained long silent and 
motionless. 

*'I knew you would come. How impatient 
I was waiting for you, but I knew you would 
come, my good, good ones! I was sure ..." 
spoke Spale after a while, quickly, emotion- 
ally, drawing us convulsively toward him. 

"Don't be scared. You will not hurt me," 
he continued, smiling when he saw that we 
were trying not to touch him. 

"I do not feel . . . anything, at all! Except 
my arms, heart, and head, all, but you know 
a 'tout' qu'il faut souligner, — all is dead. 
They have given me a pleasure that I can be 
present at my own funeral ! And so now I am 
holding endless eulogies to: Spale, the man 
who tried to be an artist, bohemian, painter, 
99 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



who began with 'The Fence' and finished 
with 'The Kiss'; then to Spale who is a son 
and whose mother does not know that he is 
now at his own funeral ; then to the man who 
was a friend, which your presence proves; and 
finally, to Spale, soldier who died for his land 
without glory, without decoration . . . bad 
luck, boys!" 

I straightened, and looked upon him, un- 
able to believe this. I knew him as well as I 
knew myself. I thought I knew every single 
thought of his, and now I could not believe his 
words, this joke, this smile, this keen laugh- 
ing, this contempt of death. He was lying in 
this bed from which he could never, never get 
up. And yet upon his face was a sincere, warm, 
happy smile, as if he was awakening in a 
beautiful spring morning with his window full 
of May roses. Under the cover his legs were 
outlined in an unnatural, stiffened position. 
His feet were crossed, the knees pressed to- 
gether, and one could feel that something use- 
less, dead, decaying, was there. 

"Oh! I am just happy now!" he was ex- 
claiming in the same happy voice. "You 
100 



THE FALL OF NISH 



know, they told me that I have a wound large 
as a plate on my back. They also told me that 
its name is 'decubitus.' But I do not care a 
little bit about that knowledge. Think, what 
a pleasure! Somebody, making a good joke, 
said, he sees my bones, and I reply to him 
with that old philosophic 'One Semitic says 
all Semitics are lying.' " 

"Mameene, mameene!" suddenly wailed a 
high, shrieking, dreadful voice. Frightened 
and amazed, we turned our heads. A big 
black arm waved in the air from a bed. In it 
a creature was shaking, writhing, twisting, 
moving the bed like a wild animal in a cage. 
We saw that he was bound, only the arm was 
free, big, bony, long, bitten, and bloody. And 
the voice, terrible to hear, the voice of an 
insane and dying man rang through the little 
room. 

"That is the voice of something which has 
only enough life to seek its brain and love, the 
things which once made him homo sapiens,^* 
said Spale, seeing our astonishment. "His 
brain was carried away by a bullet, but there 
remained the strength with which he at- 
101 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



tacked us, seeking both. Don't be scared. He 
is harmless ; he is bound. Yesterday, when the 
doctors and nurses and orderlies went away, 
they bound him, making safety for us by the 
windings of that cord. Poor man! Now he 
does not look any more for his brain, assured 
that that is a thing which remained on the 
pavement of Belgrade, but when he awakes 
(usually he sleeps very long) he still asks for 
his love — mother — who, poor one, is in a 
certain Polish vUlage, for you must know he 
is a Pole. As you can see, one of a million of 
*Bartek the Conqueror,' ^ ideal of German 
'liberty' and perfection of 'right' given to the 
nations." 

Quite in the same moment, when this un- 
happy one began to call for his mother, and 
while Spale spoke, we heard another sound. 
From the depths of a bed, quick, sharp, 
lamentable cries from under the cover reached 
toward us : D-d-d-d-d / . . . d-d-d-d-d ! A 
large, motionless mass was under the cover of 
the bed from which these sounds came. 

*'The same, only a little different," con- 

* Tales by Henryk Sienkiewicz. 
102 



THE FALL OF NISH 



tinued Spale, describing his dreadful neigh- 
borhood with wonderful quietness and sin- 
cerity. "From him everything was taken 
away, — force, brain, soul, — and only so 
much life remained with him as that he can, 
in this way, pronounce the fourth letter of the 
alphabet. Really a funny and wonderful 
thing! His name is Dooshan. And now, once 
in a while, he persistently pronounces this 
initial of his. Certainly he is introducing him- 
self more than a hundred times to 'Madame 
Noire,' who, although much occupied these 
days in this land, yet finds time to come into 
this room. Since I have been here she has 
come eleven times. Ma f oi ! Lovely guest ! " 

I sat down beside Spale's bed and silently, 
sadly, looked around. Room! No, no, it can- 
not be called simply a room. This place where 
enters a human being, a God's creation, now 
a crushed and broken creature, at the border 
of life, but who, entering this place, still has 
a soul, soul of a martyr, fighter, and hero; 
still has a heart which throbs with goodness, 
ideals of a nation, song of a nation, liberty 
of a nation; still has the spirit, gigantic, 
103 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



unconquerable, the unbroken spirit, which 
eternally hovers over fifteen million people 
who bear the name of Serb! ^ Such a one 
enters this place and several hours later is 
carried away, a cold, lifeless corpse; but soul, 
heart, and spirit fly outside through these 
windows and mingle with the universe, there, 
with power, eternity, sublimity, and holiness 
to create the future! And resurrect the na- 
tion! Yes, this is the place of holiness and 
glory. Glory; for instead of decorations on 
their breasts, those men are carrying wounds, 
received willingly while defending the liberty 
of this land. ... Or this is the place of hor- 
rors in which death as a mediator is paying 
the debts for the native country in such a 
dreadful, indescribable way. Just because 
this unpayable debt is paid in such a way, it 
is impossible that it remains as a dead thing, 
for death buys new lives, and debts paid with 
blood give liberty. Then is this place the place 
of holiness, glory, and horrors ! 

There were seven beds under the softened 

^ The spirit of united "Yugoslav Nation" which must be 
realized. 

104 



THE FALL OF NISH 



electric light which was covered with pink 
paper. Five were standing against the wall in 
front of us, and two against the opposite side; 
between these two was the stove. On one of 
the beds near the window was Spale. On the 
right side of his bed were two windows and 
on the left the door. In the middle of the 
room was a large table with a white cover. 
Four large plain bowls full of fresh flowers 
were on it. Chrysanthemums, chrysanthe- 
mums! How many there were, and how 
beautiful! And their sweet perfume! It 
seemed as if this perfume were struggling 
with the smell of wounds and odor of death 
which crept through the room like an ugly 
serpent. Evidently the sweet good chrysan- 
themums were the conquerors. 

Five beds before my eyes! On the first, 
near the window, was the Pole, with his arm; 
next to him Dooshan, motionless. Then a 
giant, big and stout, was sitting in the bed 
with his black, hairy, disheveled head leaning 
against the wall. His right hand and breast 
were heavily bandaged in white cloth. His 
left hand, with amazing rapidity, was lifting 
105 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



and falling, from the edge of the bed to his 
mouth, holding the eternal cigarette. He 
would draw the smoke into his mouth, eagerly 
swallow it, hold his breath, and after a short 
while, puff it out with great force from his 
large breast, and watch the rings of smoke 
with his staring, wide-open black eyes. He 
was persistently silent, sunk in painful 
thoughts, paying no attention to anything. 
Only when his fingers were burned he would 
exclaim: "Sister, tobacco!" 

"The scholars have invented a wonder 
which they named 'gas-flegmona,'" con- 
tinued Spale in his introduction, with the 
same manner, "which has an ugly habit of 
killing a man, even a giant like that. His 
wound is small, but unhappily he has this big 
sickness. In order to destroy it there is im- 
mediate need to cut off the arm, but the Ser- 
bian doctors had to go away and the poor 
American doctors ^ have only about one hun- 

' The American Medical Mission was in Belgrade in the 
large pavilions of the "Vojna Bolnitza" staying there, after 
Belgrade was attacked, to the last moment. Finally, when the 
hospital was set on fire, they retreated. Later, coming to Nish, 
the Serbian Government asked them to care for and sur- 
render the Serbian wounded to the Bulgarians. 

106 



THE FALL OF NISH 



dred and fifty cases like this, and one day has 
only twenty-four hours. Conclusion: he has 
to die!" 

Next to this man a small, tender figure was 
in the bed. From time to time painfully 
weak moans came from the shaking little 
figure. 

"You would never believe who is under 
this blanket," continued Spale. "A child. 
Fourteen years! Fleeing from Belgrade, he 
and many others, as maybe you know, had 
a race with a German 'taube.' ^ Certainly 
he lost the race or * taube' wouldn't be 
* taube'! And 'pigeon' — again a German 
irony — poured fire and death over the fly- 
ing, unhappy ones. His father, mother, two 
sisters, and a hundred others were killed, and 
he, wounded, thrown into the mud. Our sol- 
diers, retreating, found him and picked him 
up. But with him they also picked up the 
tetanus. Again a scholar's controversy in the 
time of peace; whether it be animal or fun- 
gus ; it lives in darkness, mud, stables, and so 
much likes human blood that when it grasps 

* One of the latest models of German aeroplanes. 
107 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



the red canals it soaks up the blood in a very 
short time. It is said that this is a most ter- 
rible death, for these animals — or mush- 
rooms, if you wish — do not have the taste for 
such things as brain and soul, so a man is con- 
scious to the very last moment — in this case 
a little child!" 

My hair stood on end at these words. There 
were so many pains, bitternesses, astonish- 
ments that I was unable to comprehend, that 
I felt myself weakening as from an ugly, 
nauseating debility. Bata was stiff and pale 
as death, but on Spale's face the same smile 
still. The smile of happiness! 

Next to this child was a man crucified on 
his bed, dreadful as the dreams after a bloody 
battle. He was uncovered, both legs were 
sheathed in large, white metal cases. His 
body rested on his bent elbows which were 
pressed into the bed. His head hung back- 
ward, his long black hair fell back on the pil- 
low. His mouth was wide open, but not a 
sound was to be heard. 

"He is my Christ," said Spale, although 
we did not ask him. "Looking upon him, I 
108 



i 



THE FALL OF NISH 



finally got the idea how much the Son of God 
must have suffered when he was nailed 
against the wood. And this unhappy one is 
nailed, too, crucified as nobody else of his 
time. His legs are nailed to the bed by 
wounds, for both are crushed, and his arms 
are nailed by his own will in order to protect 
his back on which are four wounds. . . . From 
a Bulgarian knife, gentlemen! When the Bul- 
garian bullet sped through his knees, half an 
hour later the Bulgarian knife fell upon his 
back, for, oh, daring! he still moved. I think 
he is equal to Christ, for he is silently suffer- 
ing and dying. He is a man.'" 

Unwillingly our look went toward the cor- 
ner where the last bed was separated from 
Spale by the stove. 

"Not there!" exclaimed Spale. "As much 
as I have strengthened my aesthetic feelings 
looking upon these five beds, these five men, 
who are dying manfully, beautifully, mag- 
nificently, insomuch 'this' would destroy, not 
only aesthetic, but every single feeling. This 
is something which we are unable to grasp, 
but which kills." 

109 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



Just because of these words, we bent lower, 
by a foolish instinct of curiosity, to look into 
this corner. No, no, this is impossible! The 
words are not yet invented for this! Only, 
there in the corner, in the twilight, was some- 
thing which still lived ! 

And between those beds, between that hor- 
ror, this beautiful death, this wonder, this 
dream, these incredible things, these flowers, 
perfume, rosy light, moved a white shadow, 
tender, beautiful, gracious, pale, sad, suffer- 
ing, bowing by the side of death. It was all in 
white, with rosy shadows in the folds, and with 
red crosses on breast and forehead. To this 
shadow the giant spoke: "Sister, tobacco!" 

"Angel!" exclaimed Spale with emotion, 
noticing that we looked upon her. "Looking 
at this girl and feeling her goodness I realized 
how painter and poet came to create the idea 
of an angel." Then, following his thoughts 
and wishing to fill up his introduction, he 
continued : — 

"Simple story, brothers! Simple and usual, 
for thousands like her are in this land. She 
was young, she was beautiful, she was inno- 
110 



THE FALL OF NISH 



cent and happy. She lived and sang in the 
warm free httle nest beside the good father 
and dear mother, awaiting the time when she 
would start, in her liberty, to create her own 
nest. Now the nest is destroyed, the father 
killed, the mother dead from typhus and sor- 
rows, and she remains alone. From an in- 
nocent girl she became a woman ... a woman 
who, in a dreadful moment, in a rough and 
cruel time, has decided her position, ruled by 
the instinct of her sex. And, guided by the 
advice of her heart and instinct, seeing that 
man, her defender, her connection, her half, 
her life, is dying, perishing, she became an 
angel! Before, her name was Beeserka (lit- 
tle pearl), now, simply Sister. And to-day 
she is doing wonders with her angelic heart 
and white hands. Never a man would do for 
his brother what she has done for a stranger ! 
When yesterday the doctors called her to 
fly with them, she lighted the cigarette for 
the giant and said to him: 'Meeka, always 
when your cigarette is gone, you have only to 
say: "Sister, tobacco!'" The doctors were 
astonished when she said that, shrugged their 
111 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



shoulders and left; she remained. We all 
know we must die, but she makes death beau- 
tiful, easy, tender, as a dream in which we 
hear the songs of angels. Every morning she 
brings flowers. See! Many, many chrysan- 
themums! And when she is standing at the 
open door, in the morning sunlight, with her 
arms full of these beautiful flowers, when her 
white cheeks, beautiful dark eyes, and red 
cross appear amidst the little white and red 
blossoms, so full of life and morning fresh- 
ness, I cry in greeting her: 'Good-morning, 
little angel with chrysanthemums!' She 
comes close to my bed, puts the sweet fresh 
chrysanthemums on my breast and around 
my head, and everywhere. Their perfume in- 
toxicates me and puts me to dreaming, dream- 
ing . . . Thus she makes us already feel 
paradise . . ." 

She slowly came to Spale's bed with a beau- 
tiful, hesitating smile, sat down beside him, 
and began tenderly to caress his forehead and 
hair. Then, looking at him with a sister's 
eyes, full of tears, a perfumed sigh came from 
her angelic breast : — 

in 



THE FALL OF NISH 



"MygoodSpale!" 

Spale's breast quickly rose and fell with 
emotion and happiness. 

"This girl has conquered me!" exclaimed 
Spale, clasping her hand in both his own and 
carrying it to his lips. The tears were falling 
from his eyes. 

It came to me to kneel before these two be- 
ings, these Serbians, and say prayers to God. 



We sat for a long time, and Spale continued 
to speak. 

We had already seen so many horrors that 
our hearts quickly got the habit, and we be- 
came used to this room, and to that unhappy 
Pole, and poor Dooshan, and the giant who 
every once in a while called for tobacco and 
at whose call the sister would jump from 
Spale's bed and go to him, and to the quiver- 
ing movement of the little child to whom the 
Sister would go, glancing upon his face with a 
heart-broken look. She would stand silently 
by him with a heavy heart, for she could do 
nothing for him. Only she would bow over 
113 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



him and kiss the pale white forehead. The 
child wanted to tell her something, but the 
dreadful disease had closed his jaws so power- 
fully that only anguished shrieks came from 
his breast. But eyes, little dark eyes full of 
tears, spoke in beautiful words: "Thank you, 
thank you" . . . And to everything else we 
became used in those few hours, for, my God ! 
the human heart suffers, and throbs and lives 
in order to suffer still more. 

On Spale's face still the same smile, the 
same flood of words. We listened to him sit- 
ting in a black-and-white half dream. Evi- 
dently Bata was suffering torture, for his face 
was deadly pale and his eyes closed. I was, 
while listening to Spale's words, flying to the 
past in my thoughts, to those beautiful days 
in which there was so much sun, happiness, 
and liberty. And through this chain of sweet 
memories flashed the fiery words: He has to 
die! 

Presently Spale became serious. His eyes 

became still more shining. He pressed with 

his elbows against the bed and lifted his head, 

and in a sure and powerful voice he said : — 

114 



THE FALL OF NISH 



"Why are you so pale? What are you re- 
gretting? Me? Foolishness! Do you not 
understand this time, this century? You see, 
the earth is boiling, millions are dying, some- 
thing is being created! In my half -dead life, 
I come closer to the power which rules over 
creation. The power described in the 'Le- 
gendes des Siecles.' No, no, you can't under- 
stand this, but believe in me. I have suc- 
ceeded in explaining, in living through great 
mysterious things in this dream of death. I 
am happy, I still have enough life to awaken 
and tell this to you. 

"Do you remember my * Fence'? The 
eternal, strong iron fence in this world which 
divides man from man. This is that which 
aches the most in the heart of man. Studying 
abroad, I felt this ache, this pain myself, and 
in my sincerity and my ideal youth I made 
the little picture which I called 'The Fence.* 
'Little, but the greatest truth,' you said, 
Bata, when you saw it for the first time. Now 
the colors begin to speak. In front the road, 
dusty, rough, full of clods, endless, painful, 
the road of unhappiness over which rolls the 
115 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



life of common men, of millions of poor ones, 
of workers, of democrats, in heat, and in ice; 
behind it in a garden, full of green, and blos- 
soms, flowers, and perfume, rosy rays, bright 
sunlight, life of happiness and abundance, 
was the place where lived the aristocracy. 
And between this road and that garden, the 
fence, strong iron and steel. The misery of the 
destiny of all human life through centuries did 
its most terrible injustice, when it was per- 
mitted that those on the unhappy road could 
look through, between the bars, into the gar- 
den. 

" Centuries long has this life fled. Centuries 
long these people of the road have suffered, 
carrying the fruits of their pain to the gates 
of the fence, which only open to receive them 
and close immediately. But time is the 
teacher, and sufferings are not everlasting. 
The people begin to awake, to revolt, seeking 
rights and justice. And through centuries 
the suffering crowd of miserables attack the 
fences. Some of them were destroyed and 
equality and happiness were created; the 
others became stronger; still more iron was 
116 



THE FALL OF NISH 



put upon them. Then among the people the 
spirit arose, and, in individuals, right, which 
gave them the power called ' democracy.' The 
power of the people was growing even amidst 
their sufferings and pains, and the spirit and 
the right were becoming stronger and stronger. 
In their abundance and happiness, in their 
fear, terror, astonishment, with their old des- 
potic spirit, those in the garden made their 
fences still stronger and stronger. You see, 
there was a storm in the atmosphere . . . you 
see, the time had to come when the destiny 
of man had to be solved. This is the meaning 
of this war. Man is fighting for his life, for 
equality. Yes, man is destroying the fences. 
This is unyielding justice. 

"This fight is now on. Do you see, do you 
feel, that the earth is now shaking? The cities 
are destroyed, the churches are gone, the 
mountains are leveled, all traces of the for- 
ests are lost, millions are dying. For this is 
the fight of the people for democracy. For 
this is the only way of the future, for this is 
the only road to the final happiness of hu- 
manity. The Spirit of this century is fight- 
117 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



ing now with the whole of History from its 
creation. Now this earth is in the stahis-nas- 
cendi, in the moment of creation, in which, 
by natural laws, when two opposite elements 
meet, an explosion has to come — the ex- 
plosion is this world war, the explosion which 
will crush out twenty million lives, but will 
destroy the fences. You hear me — destroy 
the fences, for the flood of the blood of twenty 
millions has no hindrances. And just as in 
the last century Waterloo was not gained by 
Wellington and Bliicher, but by God and the 
Spirit of that time when the people tried to 
destroy the fences, so it is to-day, now, the 
Kaiser has to perish, for against him are not 
armies, but God, Democracy, and the Spirit 
of the twentieth century. You see this 
Spirit . . ." 

Suddenly, oh, is it a dream? An indescrib- 
able red light glared, and the windows, with 
a terrible crash, flew into the room, scattering 
glass upon the beds and floor. A raging pres- 
sure tore into the room and threw everything 
down. Then came an explosion which waved 
out into the infinite. Its gigantic rings on 
118 



THE FALL OF NISH 



their flashing road shook this immense build- 
ing. Immediately after, darkness and silence. 
The electric light was gone. 

"God, what is it?" exclaimed the Sister. 

"They are setting the powder magazines 
on fire, they are destroying the bridges and 
everything," I said, shivering. 

Then again, another explosion, a third, a 
fourth. In this building of misery all were 
awake and moving. We heard noise, exclama- 
tions, moans, screaming, terrible screams. 
Doors were opening. Then steps, running, 
falling. A dull, distant noise came from the 
town — the tumult of frightened people. But 
in this room, far from everything which has 
to do with life, in the darkness, in this icy 
horror and agony, was silence, and only the 
light of the cigarette of the giant quickly ap- 
pearing and disappearing. The Pole and Doo- 
shan were motionless, knowing nothing about 
this. The weak moaning of the child broke 
the heavy silence of the room. 

"Now they are destroying a hundred years 
of life and liberty!" Spale's voice quivered 
in the darkness. "Yes, everything which we 
119 



SERBL\ CRUCIFIED 



created in a hundred years, is destroyed in a 
few weeks. Poor Serbia! The explosion of 
this century has crushed out not only lives, 
but the whole country. This is the destiny. 
Yet, yet, understand me. Liberty creates the 
Nation ; the Nation, Liberty and Democracy, 
both. It creates the future." 

Fires arose soon after these explosions. 
There, far through the shattered windows, 
over the Nishava, in the "Old Fortress," an 
immense tongue of flame licked the black 
sky. 

A thick smoke, full of awful smells, envel- 
oped the whole town. It entered this room 
and poisoned the breath and blinded the eyes 
of these poor creatures. It was more than ter- 
rible! Ruin and death ruled! 

*'They have set on fire all magazines, fac- 
tories, barracks, stables, hospitals, houses," 
said Bata. 

The dull, frightening noise still came from 
the town. The faint red light of distant con- 
flagrations danced upon the white walls, 
painting the shadows of hell. In the building 
still sounded exclamations, moans, steps, and 
120 



THE FALL OF NISH 



running. Yes, the Bulgarians are coming, 
they are close. 

"I am going," suddenly exclaimed the 
giant in a dreadful, resolute voice, and lifted 
himself from the bed. He looked tremen- 
dously tall and large, in this darkness, smoke, 
and red light. We jumped. The Sister 
screamed and ran toward him. 

"Where in the name of God are you go- 
ing?" the poor Sister screamed, grasping him 
by the hand and pulling him toward the bed. 
He tore his hand from her grasp and straight- 
ened himself. The bandage around his arm 
and breast seemed to me unnaturally large. 

"I will not be a slave while I am alive," he 
said with the same sharp, resolute voice. 

"But you will die on the road," wept the 
poor Sister. 

"Yes, but free,*' interrupted the giant in 
the same manner. 

"This is impossible, you must remain . . . 
you hear me, you must remain! The Ameri- 
can doctors are here and they will defend 
you," desperately exclaimed the poor girl. 

We were standing, petrified, astonished. 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



Only I felt a powerful, unconquerable, strong 
yet bitter pride. 

"Poor American doctors, they do not know 
the Bulgarians," continued the giant, "but 
/ know them. I still have the strength. I can 
still carry myself. I want to die free, — hear. 
Sister, jree I I beg of you, for the last time, 
do me a favor. Throw my overcoat over my 
shoulders and put on my shoes." 

"Go, go, Meeka, go while you can," spoke 
for the first time the man who was crucified 
on the bed. This voice I will never ^ never 
forget. 

And the Sister bowed ... oh, good soul, holy 
became the memories of you to me! When 
she had put on his shoes and placed the over- 
coat upon him, the giant started. Suddenly he 
stopped, turned, and the big figure quivered 
for a moment. Then he slowly came to the 
white girl, who stood like a stone, bowed over 
her, and kissed the red cross on her forehead. 
Then he quickly straightened himself and 
pulled wide open the door. On the threshold 
he turned for the last time and exclaimed in 
an unforgettable voice, "A Serbian while he 
122 



THE FALL OF NISH 



is living will never be a slave," and closed the 
door. 

I pressed both hands over my face and 
mouth, in order to stifle something which 
wanted to fly from my breast. It was that 
which kills. Slave! What! My Spale to be a 
slave? This man, this Serbian? This artist 
who for love of his Serbia had created "A 
Kiss"? The kiss with which Veela, the 
maiden, our symbol of beauty, Serbia in her 
happiness, kisses the sweet sigh of liberty, 
which wafts over the blue and charming land 
of Serbian poetry? And he to be a slave? 
There is no greater cruelty than this! God 
left him only so much life that he could see 
to-morrow how the Bulgarian boot will en- 
ter this sacred room, how the most brutal 
of voices will exclaim: "In the name of the 
law and Tsar Ferdinand." 

Deep silence was in the room. In the dis- 
tance the fires flamed higher and higher, 
spreading out, gaining power. The red smoke 
rolled under the black sky. The tumult from 
the town became more distinct, the panic of 
unhappy women and children which wiped 
123 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



out their lives. A terrible noise was in this 
building. Men were going out. Wagons 
thundered endlessly on the road. Now and 
then explosions shook the earth. 

The Serbian heart, old, gray, good Nish is 
dying. 



The dawn came. Spale was silent. His eyes 
were closed. The Sister's hand was on his 
forehead — a white, beautiful, tired butter- 
fly upon a torn flower. 

The explosions had stopped. The flames 
could no longer be seen. The sun, which was 
burning, had conquered them. Only the 
smoke — black, thick, poisonous — hung un- 
der the blue sky. 

It seemed to me that the room was terribly 
cold. The overthrown chrysanthemums were 
scattered on the table. The water from the 
bowls was splashed over the floor. Piles of 
broken glass glittered in the room. The giant's 
empty bed in the middle looked icy cold. The 
Pole's arm had finally fallen; he was motion- 
less and for a long time silent. Was he dead? 
124 



THE FALL OF NISH 



From Dooshan's bed still came something 
weak, painful, something which was vanish- 
ing. The child's thin figure was still shaking. 
The crucified man was dreadfully silent. That 
dark corner, behind the stove, seemed like a 
source of death, from which ice and horrors 
poured out. 

Finally the sun appeared. The fresh rosy- 
red rays entered through the broken windows 
and stopped at Spale's pillow. They were 
playing there. They were beautiful. There 
was bitter irony and strange happiness in this 
moment. 

"The sun!" sighed Bata, as if he had 
awakened from a deep and heavy dream. 

"Sun," whispered Spale, and opened his 
eyes. 

Upon his face again the old smile was shin- 
ing. Around his head, all over the white pil- 
low, in his beautiful hair, the joyful rays were 
smiling. His eyes gleamed wonderfully, and 
his hands were shaking. 

"I feel its warmth. Good sun, sweet rays,** 
he spoke as one in a dream. Suddenly he 
grasped the Sister's hand : — 
125 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



"I beg you, Sister, turn me around, I want 
to kiss them for the last time." 

The Sister trembled, and for a moment 
seemed like one fainting. On Spale's face was 
a smile, still more beautiful, still more charm- 
ing, and with a tender glance he caressed the 
white figure. The Sister slowly, painfully got 
up. She looked unwinkingly in his face for 
some time, then she gently took his head and 
shoulder and turned him toward the pillow. 
The dead leg fell over the other. Spale looked 
for a moment at the rosy rays, then quickly 
bowed his head, and buried his lips in the 
sunny pillow. 

"Farewell, farewell, my good ones," he ex- 
claimed several times. 

Farewell! I straightened myself. Bata 
staggered. God! what does this mean? What 
will happen now? 

When the Sister again put him down in the 
old position, the tears of an unspeakable 
happiness were in his eyes. He looked upon 
us some time as in an ecstasy. Then, under- 
standing our deadly fear, he said in the gen- 
tlest voice: — 

126 



THE FALL OF NISH 



"Why are you so frightened? Why are you 
again so pale? You know that I hate that 
yellow color . . . and this is so natural. At 
least, you have to understand me. They said 
I could live a whole month, perhaps longer if 
I had good care. Thanks . . . whole month. 
What! A Bulgarian to take care of me? What! 
To live? To see how the Bulgarian animals 
enter this room, committing sacrilege against 
all its holiness, throwing the flowers of this 
angel under their feet? Oh, my good friends, 
can you not see what a great impossibility? 
This girl understands me. When God did not 
kill me to keep me from seeing this last hor- 
ror. His angel will . . . Why are you shaking. 
Sister? Your promise, your promise! You 
are doing your best work when you inject 
scopolamin into my dead body. And the 
spirit! The spirit will fly into the air where 
there is endless liberty, and remain in your 
hearts, living eternally. This is paradise! 
Think ! To die in a sweet dream, knowing that 
I press the hands of my friends, knowing that 
I look on my brothers, these heroes dying, 
but still in the arms of liberty, knowing that 
127 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



I am beside an angel, thinking constantly of 
my poor mother. Yes, my good mother . . . 
and knowing that I died for my country, 
knowing that I am stiW free." 

He fixed his beautiful look upon the white 
figure of marble, the look which said: *'I am 
ready." 

And the woman with her last power, for- 
getting everything, the instinct of her sex, 
the loss of her half, her connection, her 
future, the imperative desire of her life, from 
doll to motherhood, hearing only the tragedy 
of her Serbian heart, her angelic look replied: 
"And I, also, am ready!" 



We stopped at the big door of the hospital. 
I was so weak that I thought I could move no 
more. Bata was still deadly pale, an ugly 
yellow color had flooded his face. I was lean- 
ing against the door. Through the wide-open 
gate we saw the soldiers passing along the 
road. The last Serbian soldiers are marching 
through Nish. Black, ragged, muddy up to 
the neck, bent forward, these heroes were go- 
128 



THE FALL OF NISH 



ing. Do not ask for their feelings. They are 
silent. They are silent. They suffer and die, 
and again suffer and die, and they are again 
silent; as if they knew that the most suitable 
language for a tragedy is silence. 
> The wind now carried the heavy smoke to- 
ward the Bulgarians. The gigantic and terri- 
ble flames waved over the "Old Fortress." 
The little white silent houses were bathed in 
the ocean of morning sunlight. And the sun 
is shining . . . God! is that an irony? Or 
something which we do not understand? 

Finally we started. For the last time I 
turned toward the building with large black 
holes. "Farewell, my little one," I whispered 
within myself. The tremendous sorrow, rag- 
ing unhappiness, dreadful strokes, became a 
heavy eternal bitterness of tragedy. 

The streets were empty and dead. Every- 
thing was closed. The soldiers went in one 
direction. Sometimes the cannon thundered 
over the pavement, sometimes cavalry. A 
silent, dark, dreadful shadow crept near the 
walls, the wounded, fearful, half dead, with 
crutches, slowly, painfully, with their last 
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SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



strength were trying to buy their liberty. 
Some of them had already succeeded. 

At the market before the Hotel Orient was 
a group of men, a few old men, two ministers 
and an old woman. Were they alive? They 
were motionless with their looks fixed upon 
the ground. They were gathered to go before 
the Bulgarians and to beg of them (oh, my 
God !) to spare the women and children. Poor 
men ! Only a few days after you were the first 
ones to be hanged. 

The big steel bridge over the Nishava, com- 
pletely wrecked, hung from its two ends in 
the muddy river, whose turbulent waters 
streamed over it. Farther below, the large 
wooden bridge was still burning. 

Around the white cathedral we met old 
women, who, disregarding fear and their old 
age, went into the church, with a candle in 
their shaking and bony hands, to say prayers 
to God, kneeling before the holy ikonas. For 
what? Old unhappy heart of the mother 
knows, and it believes. Some of them were 
screaming loudly while going. 

A woman gave wine from a window. The 
130 



THE FALL OF NISH 



soldiers drank it without a word. In the 
charsheea where the shops were, the pave- 
ment was covered with merchandise which 
had been thrown out of the shops, so that the 
soldiers might carry it away. A few of them 
bent and gathered up some, others shrugged 
their shoulders and jumped over the piles, 
for the time had passed many centuries ago 
for omnia meum mecum 'porto. 

At the railroad station, horrors: iron and 
steel in monstrous piles all twisted, melted, 
and broken; the locomotives with their noses 
in the middle of these piles; rails and switches 
like serpents over the earth. Many buildings 
were destroyed to their foundations, whose 
remnants covered these piles of iron and steel. 

In front of the railroad station was an im- 
mense building, perhaps one of the largest 
buildings in Serbia. Before, it was a military 
school; now, it was a hospital. Dreadful, in- 
describable shadows were standing at un- 
countable black holes looking down upon the 
soldiers who were passing. These were the 
wounded. Fifteen hundred remained in this 
building. Like a vision of something unimag- 
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SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



inable these creatures were standing in the 
windows. There are moments when a stone 
may weep; now, this building was crying. 
Destiny had left so much life to these un- 
happy ones that they could become slaves. 
Some hands wrapped in white waved to us 
from these black holes. It seemed as if they 
were saying: "Good-bye, most happy among 
living ones!'* This, too, was irony. 

When we came out from the town we found 
our battalion. We stopped on a hill. The 
town was lying at our feet — the town of 
flame, of smoke, of horrors, of unhappiness, 
the town of slavery, the stage for Bulgarian 
wildness, cruelty, and fiendishness; and yet 
the town of Serbian history and of the past, 
the town of our beauty and honesty, the holi- 
ness of this land, old martyr who suffered 
through the centuries, and our good, gray old 
one who was so happy in its days of Serbian 
liberty. It was Nish . . . 

Some time before noon of this sunny day 

of God, the Bulgarian cavalry entered into it. 

The hoof of Gessler's horse was stamping in 

the middle of our heart. And the next day the 

132 



THE FALL OF NISH 



Bulgarians were raging in their victory, com- 
mitting every sacrilege in the midst of our 
gray Nish. 

Thus Nish fell. 

With piteous cruelty was the heart of 
Serbia torn out, this beautiful, honest, red 
Serbian heart which lived and throbbed only 
for Liberty and Democracy. 

The man who did this bears the name of 
Wilhelm II von Hohenzollern, and millions 
are still crying: *'Hoch der Kaiser!" 



II 

THE GRAVEYARD BY THE MORAVA 

After the fall of Nish my division had 
retreated on the right bank of the Morava 
River; its task was to prevent the Bulgarians 
from crossing, and to keep open for traffic the 
high road toward the south on the left bank. 
The Combined Army of fifty thousand men 
had to pass along this road. 

South of Nish, on the left bank of the 
river, stretched the valley of the Morava for 
twenty miles; in front of Leskovatz this val- 
ley became undulating and ascending. Around 
the town the mountains rose like a gigantic 
amphitheater. In order to enter the town one 
must pass through a wide, natural gateway 
between two beautiful romantic hills which 
ended the amphitheater. This pass faced the 
river, beyond which was the mountain-side 
on which my division was intrenched. The 
highway from Nish and Kruschevatz went 
through the central part of the valley and 
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GRAVEYARD BY THE MORAVA 

turned to the left near Leskovatz, leading on 
through the pass and the town into the moun- 
tain fastnesses. If the whole Combined Army 
could get through this pass it would be secure; 
then my division could take positions around 
the town in natural fortresses, where they 
could easily defend the place and hold the 
enemy back until the Combined Army had 
time to escape beyond the mountains. But 
could this be done.'' 

The Bulgarian army had not attacked us 
for some time with infantry, but had dis- 
charged their wicked shells, which exploded 
high above us, staining the pure blue of the 
skies with smoke. I took advantage of this 
respite to look through my field-glasses at the 
valley below me. Thousands and thousands 
of human beings were creeping along the val- 
ley! Here and there one could see masses 
moving very slowly. These masses were com- 
posed of men, women, and children, oxen, 
cows, sheep, goats, dogs — all jammed to- 
gether, painfully pushing forward. I could see 
that they tried to hurry their slow march, but 
it seemed as if they stumbled at each step 
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SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



over invisible obstacles, and it seemed too as 
if some great force — the spirit of their native 
land, perhaps — held them and did not per- 
mit them to go forward. 

The homes of these people had been burned 
and destroyed without pity. The fields had 
been trampled and their fruits ruthlessly 
crushed into the earth. The rivers were flow- 
ing turbid with blood. The songs of the brooks 
had been drowned by the scream and crash 
of shot and shell. The forests had been up- 
rooted, broken, ruined, enveloped in smoke 
and stench. The cemeteries were demolished 
and desecrated, and the flowers on the tombs 
were trampled by the hoofs of horses. The 
bells would never ring again from the white 
towers of the churches. The grandfathers and 
grandmothers had been killed amid the ashes 
of their homes. Song and happiness were 
replaced by weeping and wailing, the crash 
of artillery, unspeakable ferocity and cruelty.. 
It was now a land of horror from which they 
fled — this country which they thought would 
always be a land of happiness and love, a 
flowery corner where one could live as in 
136 



GRAVEYARD BY THE MORAVA 

paradise. Always to be the good mother — 
their dear native land! And now? Human 
imagination could not picture a worse hell. 

Fright had stiffened their limbs and horror 
had palsied their minds. My glasses showed 
me dreadful pictures. A mother carried her 
infant bound on her back. She clasped the 
next younger one to her breast, and the older 
ones, holding to her skirt, ran after her, bare- 
footed, half-clothed, weeping and crying from 
fear, cold, and hunger. When one of these 
little ones grew so weak; when his little heart 
began to beat so slowly; when his little feet, 
wounded, cut, bloody, and exhausted, could 
no longer carry his tired body, and his tiny 
hand, which had held fast to his mother's 
skirt, was no longer able to hold on, then he 
let go of the skirt, which was his only shelter; 
his mother was lost to him and he stood alone. 
The poor woman could not hear his appealing 
cry; there were five others around her who 
were weeping. Suddenly a flock of frightened 
sheep rushed by, and the child was thrown 
dowTi into the mud ; then came oxen and cows 
and wagons. Some one among the refugees, 
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SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



who had not yet lost his heart amid this 
horror, picked up the little body and threw 
it into a ditch near the road that it might 
not be crushed any more. In such times, un- 
happy is every woman who bears the name 
of mother! 

I saw young girls carrying white bundles 
in which were all the wedding garments 
which they had spun and woven in happiness 
of heart, always with songs on their beautiful 
lips. Shame, fear, and horror were marked 
upon their young faces, for the victors had no 
pity. 

I saw men and old woman loaded with 
things saved from the fire, or wrested from 
the bloody hands of the enemy. Oh, how they 
staggered, those old people, under the weight 
of these precious burdens, all that remained 
of their former riches, and the remnant of 
life's labor! Before them were driven the 
weary and starving cattle. They begged these 
poor creatures to "go on, go on, my dears, 
only a little farther." No one knows the num- 
ber who died in that grim valley, or the heart- 
rending scenes there. When an only child 
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GRAVEYARD BY THE MORA VA 

fell, its mother would lie beside it and with 
her last strength gather the child to her 
breast and wait for their black fate. 

I saw also the long, dark lines of infantry. 
How they staggered, wavered and broke, but 
quickly gathered themselves in order and 
marched on! Blackened, ragged, bloody, 
bearing many wounds, yet, with resolute looks 
and clenched teeth, carrying in their hearts 
faith in strength and justice, marched these 
men, stronger than death — the last defend- 
ers of their native land. 

Everywhere along this valley one could see 
hundreds and hundreds of wagons. Some 
turned aside from the thronged roads into 
the fields, where they tried to go on; but the 
horses were worn out, the wagons overloaded, 
the men had made their last efforts. They 
could go no farther; they remained there, 
sunk in the deep mud. 

An appalling sound rose from the valley, 
the mingled weeping, screaming, and crying 
of children, the groans of men, and the lowing 
and bellowing of the animals. 

I leaned my head against the cold stone to 
139 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



shut out this horrible scene, and held both 
hands over my breast that my heart should 
not break. 



At two o'clock in the afternoon the colonel 
called all the officers of my regiment. As my 
captain had been wounded ten days before, I, 
being the next oldest officer, had replaced 
him and gone to the colonel to take his orders. 
In a small narrow cup of the hills, shut in by 
gray rocks, I found him with the other officers 
around him. I was frightened by the looks of 
these men. They were pale, dirty, blood- 
stained, ragged, exliausted, and unshaven. 
Some of them had bandaged hands, others 
had bandaged heads. Most of them had no 
caps; some were shivering with fever; others 
could hardly stand because of intolerable 
pain. God! did I look the same? Could these 
be the healthy, handsome young men who 
went into the struggle two months ago? 

As the youngest I took the last place. We 
were all standing motionless, waiting for or- 
ders from the colonel, who stood before us. 
140 



GRAVEYARD BY THE MORAVA 



He looked tenderly upon us; his eyes dimmed, 
and a shadow seemed to pass over his face. 
His glance fell; he sighed deeply. Suddenly 
he straightened himself and threw out his 
chest; and, looking upon us again with a firm 
resolute gaze, thus spoke the "Old Lion": — 

"Gentlemen, I could have sent a written 
order to you, but I summoned you to say 
that our efforts have been rewarded. We have 
saved the Combined Army. Also I wish to 
say that the Vojvoda sends congratulations to 
you. Andl, I admire you, gentlemen! This is 
not flattery. You know that I cannot flatter, 
nor do I wish to, for it would be an insult to 
your efforts and your bravery. Gentlemen, 
I simply admire you with all my heart. I see 
what you have done and I know what you 
must do. Officers, it is demanded of us to 
defend Lescovatz; Serbia demands that you 
die in order to save her other children ! " 

The colonel was silent for a moment. A 
deathly hush fell upon us. I looked upon the 
men around me. A young lieutenant beside 
me grasped convulsively at my hand to keep 
from falling. His head was bandaged around 
141 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



the cheek and chin with a dirty cloth through 
which the blood-drops crept, gathering on his 
chin and falling on his breast. A captain be- 
side him had a wounded arm which was slung 
from his neck in a colored shawl, beneath 
which could be seen the hand, red and swol- 
len; slowly he drew up his other hand and 
placed it over the wounded one, that the 
others might not look upon it. Another, a 
captain, clenched his teeth to prevent their 
chattering from the racking fever which shook 
him. But his clothing shivered as in the wind. 
Farther on stood a young major who was with- 
out a cap: his face was red, his hair wet, and 
from his forehead great drops of sweat ran 
down. One could see that he was consumed 
by raging fever. But in spite of all this, when 
the colonel spoke his last words, every man 
straightened up. Their looks showed that 
they had understood the colonel and were 
ready to make this last sacrifice. 

The colonel continued: "I have received 

orders from headquarters. During this day 

and the coming night, the Combined Army will 

pass through the pass of Lescovatz. You 

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GRAVEYARD BY THE MORAVA 

know that the main attack of the Bulgarians 
was against this army. It has fought for a 
month and withstood all these attacks, sur- 
viving superhuman efforts, and, at last, has 
marched day and night without rest. The 
men are exhausted. Beyond Lescovatz are 
the mountains, through which the advance is 
very difficult, and for these worn men it will 
be still more trying. This means that they 
must have time to reach safety. Our division 
must procure this for them by defending 
Lescovatz. Here is the plan. The Twentieth, 
Eighteenth, and our regiment will cross the 
Morava at once, and take the positions around 
the town. The Fourteenth Regiment will re- 
main here with a detachment of mountain 
artillery and check the enemy during the day 
and following night until three o'clock in the 
morning, when they will cross the river, blow- 
ing up the bridge behind them. Meanwhile 
we must make all possible preparations for 
the fight of the next day. My regiment will 
defend the position at the right of the town. 
To every company I give its section." 

Then the colonel told the commanders 
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SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



their sections, and gave the precise informa- 
tion. Presently he came to me: — 

"Second company of the fourth battalion? " 
he asked me. 

"Yes, sir." 

"How many soldiers have you in your 
company?" 

"About one hundred and fifty, sir." 

"That means that you have lost more than 
a hundred. Take better care of your children, 
my boy!" he added jokingly. 

I smiled bitterly. 

"One hundred and fifty!" continued the 
colonel. "That is a fine number. Others do 
not have half as many. Because of this I have 
decided to give you a very important posi- 
tion. You will occupy the position at Mirno 
Brdo [Peaceful Hill], which is at the right 
side of the pass. You will dig trenches toward 
the pass and the valley. I will give you two 
field-cannon and three machine-guns. Do 
you see how / take care of my children? Re- 
member — dig the trenches as deep as pos- 
sible and as soon as you can. Do you under- 
stand? '\ 

144 



GRAVEYARD BY THE MORAVA 

"Yes, sir." 

I was the last one to receive orders. Mean- 
while the other commanders went to places 
where they could examine the valley and the 
position of Lescovatz. Some used field-glasses 
and all had maps. I took my map to locate 
my "Peaceful Hill," and quickly found it. 

I felt as if I had been struck: I saw the 
mark of a cemetery on my position. Unable 
to believe this, I took my field-glasses to 
make sure that I was right. It was true; I dis- 
tinctly saw the crosses, the graves, and the 
white monuments. 

A cemetery ! I did not know what to think. 
The colonel was moving away. I ran over to 
him. 

"There is a cemetery, sir, over the whole 
of my position!" 

The colonel looked at me with surprise and 
smiled bitterly. 

"I know. Well?" 

"The firing line goes along the crest of the 
hill and I shall have to dig my trenches 
through the middle of the cemetery among the 
graves — " 

14^ 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



"I know! Well?" 

"How can I dig up the graves?" 

"How? With pick — with pick and shovel, 
my boy! Listen! I do not defend the dead, 
but the living. I do not defend cemeteries, 
but our native land. Do you understand?" 

"Yes, sir," I whispered. 

"How right he is!" I thought to myself; 
and went quickly to my company. 

My company still had four platoons. The 
sergeants of these were good men and very 
brave. Two of them I was especially fond of. 
Bora and Cheda. Bora was a lad scarcely 
twenty years old. He was a student in the 
University of Geneva, where I had met him 
two years before. He was a handsome, well- 
built fellow; smiles and songs were always on 
his lips. In the most terrible battles he had 
sung. He used to say that when a man sings 
he has no time to think about fear, suffering, 
fatigue, or pain. And so he sang and sang. He 
was always cheerful and never complained. 
We all loved him. Many times I have heard 
the soldiers say, "We would die to save a hair 
of Bora's head." 

146 



GRAVEYARD BY THE MORAVA 

Cheda was the opposite of Bora — an older 
man, small, bent, always serious and quiet. 
He was a peasant, but naturally very intelli- 
gent, with a big heart and an idealist's soul. 
I never saw a braver man. In the most dread- 
ful battles he would put his hands in his 
pockets and give commands to his soldiers 
with marvelous coolness and calmness; he 
never sought to shelter himself. He was a 
married man, with three children. I loved 
him, too! To Cheda and Bora I was not a 
commander, but a real brother. 

The time came for my company to cross 
the bridge. The weary and careworn soldiers 
went silently. Perhaps they were quiet be- 
cause of fatigue, pain, and hunger, or perhaps 
it was because I was very sad, worried and 
anxious, for I usually talked and joked with 
them. Bora, too, was quiet for a while, but 
presently he came to me, asking in a worried 
tone, ** Why are you so gloomy?" 

I could not answer him; I could not speak. 
My head dropped. 

But the lad continued, "Where are we 
going.? " 

147 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



*'To the cemetery," I replied shortly. 

He laughed. "For more than ten days we 
have been walking in a cemetery! Joking 
aside, where are we going?" 

"To the cemetery, to the real cemetery, to 
dig up the graves!" 

Bora grasped my sleeve and looked in my 
face, his fine eyes wide with consternation 
and fright. I saw that he was much overcome, 
and spoke quietly to him. 

"I have received orders to take the position 
at Peaceful Hill. And that is the cemetery of 
Lescovatz. We are obliged to dig up the 
graves in order to make the trenches. Do you 
understand now.''" 

"So it is true, after all," he said. Then 
without waiting for my answer he ran to tell 
Cheda the news. In a short time the whole 
company knew where we were going. 

As I went on ahead of my company, I could 
hear an angry murmur and now and then an 
exclamation: "This is sacrilege!" "It will 
bring misery to us!" "God will punish us!" 
"Must we dig up the dead.^" "Must we take 
out the bones of the dead?" 
148 



GRA\T.YARD BY THE MORAVA 

Every sentence came like a blow on my 
head. At the same time we fell in with the 
throng in the valley. We saw those who were 
unable to go on, who were weeping, or writh- 
ing in pain. We saw the wagons mired to the 
hubs in the deep mud, and it seemed to me 
that the men clustered round them had lost 
their reason, for they were shouting madly, 
and cruelly beating the poor exhausted horses. 
And then we came to those who were dying, 
and the dead Ij'ing in the ditches. 

Three regiments had crossed the river. 
They were trying to move on across the val- 
ley, but the confusion and disorder in the 
throng was dismaying. I could not endure it 
any longer. 

"Bring me my horse!" I called to my 
orderly. 

After I had mounted I said to Cheda, "I 
am going ahead to look over my position; 
you bring the soldiers to the cemetery. Take 
care that no one stays behind." 

I spurred my horse so as to leave that hell 
as quickly as possible. 

Xe * % 

149 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



How beautiful was the cemetery! How 
quiet it was there at Peaceful Hill ! 

At the crest of the hill was a large rounded 
plateau, quite level. The old cemetery was 
on this plateau. It was like a park. Wide 
straight paths, strewn with yellow sand, went 
in all directions, and above them great linden 
trees formed beautiful arches. Between the 
paths were the graves, surrounded by low 
borders of evergreen, or old iron fences, with 
monuments of black or white marble, and a 
low seat of stones near each grave. At each 
grave there was a tiny lamp, in many of which 
red and yellow flames burned. And every- 
where were many flowers and sweet odors. 

The citizens of Lescovatz had thought this 
hilltop would always be large enough for their 
cemetery; but death had been busy in poor 
Serbia the last five years. Because of this the 
cemetery had extended down the slopes in all 
directions; in this new part were hundreds 
and hundreds of new graves. There were no 
wide paths between these, nor high monu- 
ments of marble, nor iron fences. They were 
low mounds with simple wooden crosses — 
150 



GRAVEYARD BY THE MORAVA 

the graves of soldiers. But still each grave 
had its lamp, and many of the flowers which 
grow so quickly from tears. 

I got off my horse, hitched him to a tree, 
and went to examine the locations where the 
trenches must be dug. I went first to the 
south side where the trenches must face the 
pass. When I reached this place I wanted to 
cry out in great joy. A wide path ran along 
the crest just where I must dig the trenches. 
Never in my life had I felt greater joy and 
relief. "If only it would be the same on the 
other side!" I said aloud to myself, as in 
prayer. It was easy to establish the points 
where the trenches were to be dug, for the 
whole space before the path was entirely 
clear; the little wooden crosses at the new 
graves of soldiers below were almost innu- 
merable. Lower down were vineyards and 
the little cabins of the vine-growers. It was a 
fine place for my trenches. 

Afterwards I went across to the east side, 

facing the valley; there all my joy and hopes 

vanished. Not only were there no paths, but 

the old and new cemeteries overlapped. While 

151 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



I was riding to the cemetery I had made up 
my mind that I must destroy the graves. But 
now, when the moment came that I must 
really do this, I felt stunned, and my brain 
refused to act. A cold sweat broke out upon 
my body; drops trickled down my forehead 
into my eyes and stung them. Then the 
words of the colonel came to my mind: "I 
do not defend the dead but the living." I 
grasped this reason as a drowning man 
clutches at a straw. 

I examined the ground where the line for 
the trenches must be marked. Here I would 
have to destroy five old graves and two new 
ones; there, I would have to dig up seven 
new and three old ones. But, after a while, I 
found a line between the graves, which, 
though not very strategic, would not cross 
many graves. Only four would have to be 
destroyed; and of these three were old; two 
were very old — sunken, and so covered with 
grass as to be scarcely recognizable. The 
other old one was surrounded by a black iron 
fence, and a white marble monument stood 
near the mound, on which was chiseled in 
152 



GRAVEYARD BY THE MORAVA 

golden letters, "To our good Mama." There 
were many dead roses on the grave, but the 
beautiful crowns of the chrysanthemums were 
open. 

The new grave was that of a soldier. On 
the mound were many flowers, and a lamp 
which burned in its tiny white church. On 
the left side the earth was pressed down by 
being knelt upon. At the head of the grave 
was a small red cross of wood with the 
words — 

YOVAN MILICH 

Died of Wounds Received 

in the Battle of Kosmaj 

October 2, 1915 

I looked upon these two graves sadly. In 
one was lying a son, a soldier, a warrior, a 
defender of his native land. In the second 
a mother — the dearest being, the most holy 
person to her children. It came over me that 
I must kneel before these graves and pray. 
But, suddenly I looked upon myself. I was 
dirty, disheveled, bloodstained. 

"Men like me cannot pray to God!" I said 
aloud. And I felt that it did not pay to live. 
153 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



By this time my company had arrived at 
the cemetery. The many experiences which 
these men had known in their unending fight- 
ing had taught them where to go and what 
to do as soon as they came to a new situa- 
tion. But now they went hesitatingly, they 
stopped, they hid behind each other, and 
all sought to be in the rear line. They were 
frightened. 

"Third and fourth platoons, follow me!'* 
I said, and went to the south side. When 
we came to the path I said to them, "You are 
lucky. You will not have to dig up the graves. 
The trenches will go along the edge of this 
path. You will start at this monument and 
end beyond that tree. You must begin work 
right away and try to finish before dark. Go 
on, men, go on to work!" 

Afterwards I came back to the first place. 
Some of the soldiers were going from grave to 
grave, reading the inscriptions and whisper- 
ing among themselves. Many had laid down 
on the grass. Some were asleep. When I 
came, they all rose, and stood silently await- 
ing my order. It seemed to me that they 
154 



GRAVEYARD BY THE MQRAVA 

stood before the last judgment. Bora and 
Cheda came to me. 

"Listen!" I said to them. "You will be- 
gin at this fence, dig over this new grave and 
those with white monuments, and end be- 
yond the two old graves. Begin at once. We 
must finish this in four hours. Come on ! " 

The soldiers, with shovels on their shoul- 
ders, advanced slowly and hesitatingly and 
stood near each other on the line I marked 
out. A great hulking fellow, tanned almost 
black, with bandaged head, the stock of 
whose gun bore more than thirty scratches 
(each scratch meant that he had killed a 
man), stood over the soldier's grave and with 
his heavy boot kicked at the earth of the 
mound and trampled the flowers. I would 
rather he had trampled on my heart. 

When the soldiers were all in line, Cheda 
said, "Begin!" 

Each man bent and began to dig at his 
place. Cheda came to the big soldier and 
quietly said to him, "You must not throw 
down the cross!" 

"No fear, Sergeant, it's not in my way," 
155 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



replied the giant, and struck his shovel into 
the mound. 

I went a little farther and sat down on a 
bank, that I might not see. 

The sun was going down. Its last red rays 
shone through the crowns of the lindens whose 
yellow and faded leaves covered the paths and 
the graves. The trees and monuments made 
long shadows on the leaf-strewn ground, 
which looked like a beautiful carpet of a 
thousand colors, rosy with the gleam of the 
sunset. The little lamps on the graves be- 
gan to shine more brightly and weirdly. At 
first I heard only the strokes of picks and 
shovels behind me; then the soldiers began 
to murmur, to talk, then to call to each 
other, to swear, and finally to laugh. I heard 
a voice. 

"It is not so terrible to dig here." 

"Surely, it is not. The sexton does this all 
his life!" 

I recognized the voice as that of the giant 
who dug into the soldier's grave. 

"Eh! How easy the shovel goes in this wet 
earth — like into a cheese," said another. 
156 



GRAVEYARD BY THE MORAVA 

''In a cemetery the earth is always wet — 
with tears!" I heard Bora's voice. 

"Dig! dig!" said Cheda, in a low tone. 

"Oh, yes! dig! dig!" replied Bora. "It's 
all the same. If we dig in the fields, pastures, 
vineyards, rocks, mountains, forests, or ceme- 
teries, it is all the same; everywhere we de- 
stroy human toil and God's works. In every 
case we are sinners. In other places we throw 
out only stones, but here a skull. But it is all 
the same anyway; neither can speak, neither 
can feel. Dig! dig!" 

Presently I saw an old man who was trying 
to hurry toward us. He was unable to run, 
but he cried out something and made signs 
with his hands. I rose and met him at the 
trench. He was very, very old, his hair was 
all white, his eyes were wide with horror. He 
tried to speak, but he had lost his breath from 
hurrying and no words came. He gasped for 
breath a few moments, stretched his hands to- 
ward the soldiers as if he wanted to make them 
stop, then cried : — 

"What are you doing here, men?" 

"Can't you see? We're digging trenches!'* 
157 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



said Cheda in a low angry voice. He hated 
to be interfered with. 

"But in the cemetery!" exclaimed the poor 
old man. "In my cemetery! Don't you know 
that I have taken care of this cemetery more 
than forty years? I swore before God that I 
would keep forever his holy things. I do not 
permit this. Do you understand.'* I do not 
permit you to dig here! It is impossible! 
From a thousand other places you choose just 
this to destroy!" 

"Hey, cheecha, as far as you can see the 
trenches are dug everywhere round the town. 
Now understand me, everywhere they — " 
began Bora. 

"I don't care!" broke out the cheecha, 
angrily, to Bora. "You can dig everywhere, 
you can destroy everything, you can do what 
you wish, but not here /" 

For a moment there was silence. The sol- 
diers stopped their work and watched to see 
what happened. 

The old sexton, seeing this, thought that 
we had given up and said more gently, 
"Hayde, hayde dobri moye. Fly from here!" 
158 



GRAVEYARD BY THE MORAVA 

"That's impossible; we are not birds," 
laughed a soldier. 

"What! you will not go from here? You 
will not leave my graves in peace?" 

"I beg of you, cheecha, go away," said 
Cheda sternly; "go, go at once, and get out 
of our way." And turning to the soldiers, he 
said, "Go on digging." 

The men, who were amused at this scene, 
began to dig, laughing. When the poor old 
man saw this, he screamed as if he had been 
wounded, and rushing to the giant who was 
digging at the soldier's grave, grasped his 
shovel with both hands, trying to take it away 
from him, and crying, — 

"Hae! you shall not, you shall not dig here 
while I am alive!" 

The big soldier, from whom the devil him- 
self could not wrest anything, held the shovel 
in one hand ; with the other he brushed away 
the old man, saying, — 

"Let me alone, cheecha. Let me alone, I 

tell you! If I had to defend such as you, 

certainly I would not destroy these graves; 

but," pointing to the valley, "for those down 

159 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



there, I would do anything; for those I would 
die!" 

And, knowing that he was right, in his ex- 
citement he pushed the old man so hard that 
he fell to the ground. I hurried to them, cry- 
ing, — 

"What are you doing, you fools?" 

Then, for the first time, the old man saw 
me. He crept to me, clasped my feet with 
his arms, and weeping, begged me : — 

*'0h, sir! sir! I beg of you, if you know God, 
don't let them destroy the graves; don't let 
them commit a terrible sacrilege! God will 
punish them!" 

I bent over him and said : — 

"Be reasonable, cheecha, we have to dig 
here. This place is a very important strategic 
point. If we do not defend it, the Bulgarians 
will enter quickly into the town and do fright- 
ful things. Serbia is dying, cheecha, her peo- 
ple are perishing. We have to do everything 
in order to save them. We must take every 
help. The time is coming when we must take 
help of the dead too. Understand, the dead 
have to help us now!" 
160 



GRAVEYARD BY THE MORAVA 

The old sexton looked at me in amazement, 
as if he did not understand me. Suddenly his 
head drooped; he fell to the ground and wept 
like a child. Cheda looked at me. I gave him a 
sign with my head and he went to the soldiers. 

"Two men here! Take that old man and 
carry him to his home, and say to his wife, or 
to anybody else, that they must leave the 
cemetery at once." 

Two soldiers lifted the old man, taking him 
under the arms, and went off. The old sexton 
looked as if he were dead. After going a little 
distance, he jerked himself away from the sol- 
diers, straightened up and cried in a solemn 
voice, — 

"You have to know that you dig your own 
grave. God will punish you! H6 will bury 
2/02< to-morrow ! " 

Then suddenly he collapsed and fell into 
the arms of the soldiers, an inert mass. The 
men were laughing and calling, — 

"Oh, we know that!" 

"We came here for that!" 

"At least, we know that we will have a good 
sexton!" 

161 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



"Be silent! Work!" said Cheda, angrily. 

The soldiers became quiet and began to 
work again. It seemed as if I had dreamed all 
this, that I was not alive. I felt as if the heart 
and soul had gone out of me and I had neither 
nerves nor brain. I returned to the bank and 
sat down. The sun had set but it was still 
light. It was one of those beautiful last days 
of autumn, which tell us that Nature will soon 
die, but also give promise of a new spring- 
time. Alas! will the springtime ever come 
to poor Serbia again ? 

For a while the soldiers worked quietly. 
They saw the night coming, and as they knew 
that the trenches must be finished before 
dark, they used their last strength hurriedly. 
Occasionally I heard a sad, tired sigh, the 
sigh of a man who can no longer move. Then 
I would hear the voice of his friend : — 

"Go, go on, bata [little brother], only for 
a little longer. We will have the whole night 
to rest!" 

Then I heard a strange noise of many 
voices calling, — 

*'Hee! Bones!" 

1C2 



GRAVEYARD BY THE MORAVA 



"How black and yellow they are!" 

"How large they are! One cannot believe 
they are human bones!" 

All of a sudden I heard an angry exclama- 
tion, the cry of a man who had endured for a 
long time and can no longer bear up. 

"I cannot work any longer! I shall stifle! 
It smells horribly!" 

"What? It smells!" I heard Bora's voice. 
"Ha, bato moj, this is no perfumer's shop, it 
is a cemetery; it is not the festival of Mi- 
Careme, it is war. Have you forgotten the 
days of Cerna-Bara, when we had to remain 
for fifteen days in our trenches, and around 
us lay the corpses which had rotted in the 
summer sun, because we could not bury them? 
Do you remember that?" 

"I remember, but it was not as — " 

"It was worse," said Clieda angrily. "It 
is not worth your while to complain. Better 
work! Dig!" 

Again they were silent. Again only the 
stroke of the picks. 

"Auh!" cried a frightened voice. "Bora, 
look here ! A skull ! ' ' 

163 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



**A skull! Throw it up here. How terrible 
and cold it is ! Can it be possible that this was 
once covered with flesh, and moved above the 
earth? Brothers, for a long time I have wished 
to act Hamlet; finally my opportunity is here. 
No actor would wish a better stage. But in- 
stead of applause, it is the thunder of cannon. 
It is more magnificent ! And instead of laurels, 
perhaps I will get a bullet through my fore- 
head. But it is all the same. This scene is 
worth death! The story is, that a khedive, 
throwing away his koran and his ingiales, gave 
liberty to all his slaves and the wives of his 
harem. He stood before a window and saw 
how these unhappy ones joyfully breathed 
the beautiful air of liberty. Never khedive 
saw a more magnificent picture! Later, he 
committed suicide in the great delight of his 
heart, with these words on his lips, 'These 
scenes will not happen every day.' 

"A skull! Is that a skull of a politician, a 
lawyer, or a buyer of land.'^ Is that a skull of 
those men whom Hamlet hated and despised.'* 
No, no, it is the skull of a mother. Do you see 
what is written here: *To our good Mama!* 
164 



GRAVEYARD BY THE MORAVA 



Mother! Sometimes you had heard those 
words, my poor skull, my good mother, and 
you were the happiest among human beings. 
Mother! She is our source of life, of nourish- 
ment, — our teacher, protector, defender, 
angel, love, life — our God! All this is one 
woman, one mother, to her children. Skull, 
what are you to me? Nothing but cold, dirty, 
dead bones. And yet, in these dark sockets 
were once eyes, like those of my mother, 
which wept with happiness when I smiled, or 
with pain when I but cut my little finger. 
Oh! dear mother's eyes! Here were the lips, 
like the lips of my mother, which kissed me 
and called me 'my angel.' Here were the 
cheeks, like the cheeks of my mother, which 
I kissed uncounted times!" 

Something thrilled in my heart and soul 
when I heard Bora's words. I felt that his 
words burned me, scathed me, and kindled 
great pain within me; but at the same time, I 
felt that a strange warmth was melting the ice 
around my heart which had formed there 
during these last days of horror. It seemed to 
me that I wanted to listen to his words, to 
165 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



drink them in, and yet, at the same time, to 
close my ears to them. All the feelings which 
I had hidden and kept deep in my heart, this 
good boy, in his honesty and youth, had drawn 
out without pity. Never, never should one 
speak of mother in the war! When I heard the 
words about mother, I felt as if I could not 
breathe, and that I could no longer endure to 
hear him speak, and I called out to him, — 

"Stop, Bora! Come here." 

Slowly he came over. He w^as pale as 
death. 

I was frightened by his looks, and I put 
both hands on his shoulders, shook him and 
said, — 

"Bora, be a man!" 

He looked at me, then he smiled, opened his 
eyes widely, his face flushed, and in an eager 
and excited voice, he said to me, — 

"God protect them! Is it not so.'*" 

" Yes, Bora, God protect them ! " I repeated, 
prayerfully; and suddenly I felt that a great 
hope had entered my heart. Just then the 
big black soldier's voice broke in. 

"Lieutenant!" 

166 



GRAVEYARD BY THE MORAVA 



"What is the matter?" 

"A coffin, sir, entirely new! Look! a fine 
red coffin! Here it is peeping out from the 
earth. If I dig deeper it will take more than 
a half of the trench. What shall I do now?" 

"The trench is not deep enough," I said 
to him; "dig around it and leave it exposed." 

"That is a fine idea. For a long time you 
have wished to have a chair in the trench. 
Now you will have one!" 

"Fool!" said Cheda, angrily. 

"It's a fine idea, anyway!" said the big 
fellow, chuckling, and he began to dig. 



in 

THE PLACE OF THE SKULL 

Darkness came on rapidly. The old ceme- 
tery under the lindens was entirely dark, but 
around it was still twilight. In the valley the 
white mist was lying; from the valley rose a 
sullen confused noise. The boom of the artil- 
lery across the river had ceased. An icy wind 
began to blow. In the sky the first stars glim- 
mered, and the moon rose beyond the hill 
across the river, big, murky, blood-colored. 

"Cheda, take care that the soldiers are 
through soon, and I will go to the other trench 
to see how much they have done." 

When I got there the men were in the 
trenches. They had finished. The sergeant 
came to me. 

"We are through, sir." 

"Deep enough? The loopholes strong 
enough.'* Very well. You will send two sol- 
diers who will hold the connection between 
the trenches." 

168 



THE PLACE OF THE SKULL 

"Yes, sir." 

*'Mirko, I have nothing to say to you. You 
alone know what is your duty. I think we 
shall have a terrible battle to-morrow, but 
you are an old soldier and you will know how 
to hold your men. One thing is certain: we 
must stay here until the last moment." 

"I know it, sir. Where should we go from 
here.'' This is our place — the cemetery!" 
said the sergeant quietly, as if he were speak- 
ing of his fields. 

I laid my hand on his shoulder. 

**I know you are a brave man. We shall 
trust in God!" 

Slowly I returned to the other position. 
The soldiers were in the trenches. They were 
quietly talking to each other, and one could 
see the glimmer of cigarettes. Bayonets pro- 
truded here and there from the deep trenches 
and glistened in the moonlight. Cheda was 
sitting near, his head sunk between his 
shoulders, his shikatcha drawn over his ears. 

"The machine-guns have come.'*" I asked 
him. 

"Yes, sir." 

169 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



"Have you put them as I said — two at 
the right side of the trenches, and one at the 
left?" 

"Yes, sir. What do you think of to-mor- 
row?" 

"If they have enough artillery, it will be 
bad. But if they do not, then we will kill them 
as the hail kills field-mice!" 

"I think so too, sir." 

" Where is Bora? " I asked him after a while. 

"There he is in the trench, sitting on the 
coffin." 

"What?" 

"Sitting on the coffin, dreaming as usual. 
The soldier was right in saying the coffin is a 
real chair." 

The wind began to blow more strongly. It 
was very cold. 

"Let's go dowa, Cheda; it will be warmer 
there. To-morrow you will be at the left wing 
of the trench. Bora and I will stay at the right, 
but to-night we can be together." 

Then we went down into the trench, into 
the cold, wet, nauseating graves. Some of the 
soldiers were sitting in the trench; others were 
170 



THE PLACE OF THE SKULL 

lying on the wet ground, sleeping; others were 
standing with their heads leaning against the 
wall of the trench, their guns between their 
feet and held against their breasts. Standing 
thus, they were sleeping with open mouths. 
Their only rest for the whole night! How ter- 
ribly pale their faces, and how ghastly in the 
moonlight! How like the faces of the dead! 

We found Bora sitting on the coffin, but he 
got up when we came. 

"What! are you sitting on a corpse?" said 
Cheda grimly. 

"I tell you it does not feel, and the heart 
in my breast does not feel," answered Bora 
very seriously. 

I sat down on the coffin, trying to be calm, 
but I felt a cold shudder run from my feet up 
my back and stiffen my neck. I tried to 
throw off my thoughts. I tried to calm my- 
self. But my thoughts ran on. I was never 
wider awake. I thought: "I am sitting in a 
grave upon a corpse! I do not remember that 
I ever read or heard of anything like this. Can 
it be true? Can it be reality? Perhaps I am 
sick and this whole day is only the hallucina- 
171 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



tion of a fever." But a gust swept in on us from 
the valley the distant sound of screams of 
pain, cries, and curses, which told me that it 
was all true. 

Suddenly Bora clutched my hand. I turned 
round to him. The moonlight shone in his 
face, which was pale and haggard. His lips 
were quivering, his hand was outstretched, 
pointing to something beyond the trench. I 
saw that he wished to tell me something, but 
he could not; the words stuck in his throat. 

**For Heaven's sake, what is the matter 
with you, Bora? WTiy are you so frightened? '* 

"What ails him again?" said Cheda, who 
was sitting beside me with his head between 
his knees. 

"Do you believe in ghosts?" said Bora, 
whispering and shivering. 

"\Miat?" 

*'In ghosts, in spirits?" 

"Certainly a soldier is passing through the 
cemetery," said Cheda. 

"No! no, I am not crazy. Please get up and 
look," said Bora, pulling me to my feet. 

At the same time the soldiers began to 
172 



THE PLACE OF THE SKULL 

— ^I— ^■^— ^— ^"^-^i^^^^— — ^— ^™^— i^— ^i^ii— ^^iM^ 

wake, to whisper, to get up. I looked out of 
the trench. A black shadow! It was moving 
round the old cemetery; from time to time it 
appeared in the moonlight which filtered 
through the lindens. It seemed to me to be 
very large. The soldiers became more rest- 
less. 

"Be silent!" I cried to them. 

Now the shadow emerged from the old 
cemetery. It was entirely in the moonlight. 
I saw it was a woman. She moved very 
quickly. She bent often, as though looking 
for something. Once in a while she would 
straighten herself, and we could hear her 
moan. As she came quite close to us we could 
hear her speaking to herself: "There is the 
grave of Mara, — there of friend Paya, — 
here of Caya, and here must be his I '* All of 
a sudden she screamed (oh, a terrible scream!) 
and fell upon what was left of the new grave 
of the soldier. 

"It is dug up, — it is broken down, de- 
stroyed ! " exclaimed the poor creature, writh- 
ing with grief, stretching her arms over the 
mound. "Why have you dug up his grave? 
173 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



He gave his young life for his country, but it 
is not yet enough; now he cannot have his 
rest. Why did you not find my heart to dig 
up rather than his grave? Why did you not 
first kill me? Yaoy, Yaoy! All destroyed! 
Have you removed his coffin, have you taken 
him out, have you opened those terrible 
wounds on his dead body? Have you — ?'* 

And not knowing what she was doing, she 
stumbled into the trench. We caught her and 
put her down near the coffin. 

"Here is the coffin," said Cheda, almost 
inaudibly. 

She kneeled on the ground and quickly felt 
over the coffin with her hands, whispering 
many times, "Here it is, here it is!" Then she 
shrieked again, fell on the coffin and began to 
embrace and kiss it, trembling in her whole 
body. Never in my life had I heard such 
cries. Soon they grew less and less and died 
away in a shuddering moan. Suddenly she 
weakened, her arms slipped to the ground, and 
she fell, her head striking on the coffin. 

Bora drew in his breath with a sharp hiss- 
ing sound. "Dead!" he whispered. 
174 



THE PLACE OF THE SKULL 

Cheda ran to the woman first and raised 
her. Her shawl fell from her head and we 
could see her gray silvery hair. On her fore- 
head was a great red bruise. Her eyes were 
closed. 

"She breathes," said Cheda; "give her 
water." 

I took a canteen and bathed her forehead 
and temples. 

The soldiers crowded round us. I could hear 
them whispering. "That 's a mother ! " " Poor 
woman ! " " Poor mothers — all of ours ! " 

Finally the woman moved, and opened her 
eyes. Oh, dear mother's eyes, how red and 
swollen they were! For a long time she looked 
round her; and then, as consciousness re- 
turned, she again put her arms around the 
coflBn, placed her head upon it, and whis- 
pered in the faintest of voices, "My son, my 
dear son, my tender child! Did they hurt 
you?" 

"Is that your son?" asked Bora. 

"Yes, my son, my only one. He was my 
hope, my happiness, my life. When I lost 
him I could not live myself. I did not love the 
175 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



sun, I had his eyes; I did not admire the flow- 
ers or smell them, I had his rosy cheeks and 
his hair; I did not love the sky, I had his fore- 
head ; I did not love the honey or sweetness of 
life, I listened to his voice; I did not care for 
the whole world, I had his gentle hands and 
his heart of gold ! Oh, I had him, my only one, 
and that is all. He was my life. I loved him 
so much that now I cannot love sun, flowers, 
sky, world, life. All these were in him. I can- 
not, I cannot!'* cried the poor mother in 
superhuman grief; and began to weep again. 

It was more than terrible! It was incon- 
ceivable! The soldiers all left their places and 
gathered round us, round this poor mother. 
Cheda rose and motioned to them to go away. 
They went slowly back to their places. For 
a time I heard them talk and whisper, but 
soon they grew silent; only the mother still 
wept. Presently she rose, took my hand, and 
in a frightened voice, said : — 

"Will you destroy his grave entirely? Will 

you really take him out that the dogs may 

eat him? Oh, no, no! I will not permit it. / 

am here. I am here to defend you, my dear 

176 



THE PLACE O F THE SKULL 

little heart!" cried the poor woman, clasping 
the coffin as if she wanted to take it to her 
breast and carry it somewhere far away. 

Bora knelt beside her, lifted her, embraced 
her gently, and said to her tenderly, nearly 
in tears : — 

"No! good mother, we will not take out his 
coffin. On the contrary, we are here to defend 
it. We love your son too. He was a soldier, a 
warrior, a defender; he was our friend.'* 

The mother looked at Bora a few moments, 
astonished, with wide-open eyes, as if she did 
not understand him. Then she took his head 
in her hands and began to kiss him passion- 
ately, — on his hair, on his forehead, his 
cheeks, eyes, chin, — saying: — 

"Oh, I know it. Yes, you are his friend, his 
comrade. You are a soldier as he was. And 
you too have a mother, who is now weeping 
as I am. You are all my children. Yes, yes, 
you are the same as he was, only he is dead, 
and you, perhaps, will be to-morrow. Oh my 
poor children! Have we borne you for this? 
Have we suffered, we mothers, so much, to 
lose you when we love you the most? Do not 
177 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



interrupt me. I know what you want to say. 
*Our native country is calling. We have to 
defend it, and defending it, we defend you, 
our mothers; thus we pay our debts.' Oh, I 
know it. I too thought it was so. The day 
when I parted with him, I did not weep. He 
said to me, 'Do not weep, mother; be proud 
that you have a soldier son. You have kept 
me and cared for me more than twenty years. 
Now the time has come when I can defend 
you, and I will defend you, my good mother. 
Be happy!* 

"And he went with a song on his lips, 
happy in his strength and youth. I was 
proud. 

"Right away after, I went to a hospital. 
I wanted to be truly worthy of my son. I took 
care of the wounded and kissed them, for in 
caressing them I thought that I caressed my 
boy. He wrote to me often. He was happy 
and content. He always begged me not to 
worry too much, for he felt that my love de- 
fended him. 

"One day — O God, God! One day, when 
I came to the hospital, I found another 
178 



THE PLACE OF THE SKULL 

wounded soldier. His head was bandaged and 
he was lying perfectly still. I went closer to 
the bed. Suddenly I screamed and fell on the 
floor; I recognized my son. Oh, I cannot tell 
you all! His face was black, his eyes closed, 
and around them it was all blue and red. I 
kissed him, I spoke to him, I called him, I 
shook him. Slowly he raised his swollen eye- 
lids, and showed his beautiful eyes from which 
he would never see any more, and a low pain- 
ful groan came from his lips. Oh, my poor 
child ! He had lost his sight and speech. Oh, 
I cannot tell you all. 

"One morning I went into the bandage- 
room when they dressed his wounds. He had 
no hair; his beautiful hair was shaved entirely 
off. Around his head was a wide-open gash 
from which the blood was running. O God, 
God! When the doctor pressed his head, his 
fingers sunk into the skin as if there was no 
bone beneath! Yaoy! He died after a few 
days. He was never conscious. Oh, how ter- 
rible it was! I was insane with grief. He died 
in my arms without knowing that these were 
the hands of his mother which he loved so 
179 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



much and kissed so often. O my children, can 
you not see how unhappy I am? I am not 
angry at my native country. I, too, love my 
country. But when my son has died for it, I 
too must die. It is not life for a mother without 
her children. We mothers are useless for this 
world without our children. Oh, if I were the 
only mother who is weeping now, it would be 
nothing; but there are a million mothers who 
are weeping to-day. We will flood the whole 
world with our tears, with our mourning 
garments we will darken the sun, and with 
our sorrows we will poison life. O God ! I beg 
you to kill me! I will not live without him, 
without my son, my heart, my soul!" 

The poor woman ceased speaking, and be- 
gan to weep sadly. We were silent. The hush 
of death fell. 



WTio can tell how long we sat there, dumb 
and stiff? It was terribly cold, but we did not 
feel it. The icy wind had blown dirt and dead 
leaves into our trenches, but we did not pay 
any attention to this ; the dreadful sounds from 
180 



THE PLACE OF THE SKULL 

the valley we did not hear; we were sitting in 
graves, but did not realize it; we were so near 
to death, yet no one was frightened ! No one 
wished to think of the black present, or of the 
appalling future. It was impossible to think, 
for one would become insane. Every one, 
perhaps for the last time, was sunk in thoughts 
of the past. Every one had, perhaps for the 
last time, drawn from his sick heart dear and 
tender memories. Every one remembered 
beautiful past days, when everybody was so 
happy, when the sun always shone, and the 
world was full of love. 

Suddenly, in the distance before us, beyond 
the valley, a terrible light flamed out, as if 
the world was burning. Immediately a tre- 
mendous detonation shook the ground. This 
brought us back to reality. The mother, 
startled, asked : — 

"What's that?" 

"Our troops have at last crossed the Mor- 
ava and blown up the bridge," said Bora. 
Then he added seriously, looking at me, 
"Now, the anvil is to feel the hammer- 
strokes." 

181 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



The seriousness of the present moment 
came over me. I bent over the mother and 
said to her tenderly : — 

"Now, mother, you have to go." 

She looked at me a moment and then she 
said with a bitter smile: — 

"What! go from here.'* Where? For noth- 
ing on earth will I go. I cannot leave him 
alone." 

"But, good mother, you have to go from 
here. The battle will soon be on; soon there 
will be death here," said Bora. 

"That is what I want," said the poor 
mother in a whisper. 

I was frightened and anxious. "If she really 
will not go from here!" I thought. "A 
woman in the trench ! If she were to die ! Oh, 
no, no, it is impossible, unheard-of! It cannot 
be." I took her hands and said firmly, 
"Mother, I beg you to go. Go to your home.'* 

" Home? We mothers have no homes when 
our children are no longer there. Then, for 
us, a grave is our home. I am in it." 

"I beg you, mother, my dear mother, be 
reasonable. It is impossible. Come now, ca?i't 
182 



THE PLACE OF THE SKULL 



you see — " begged poor Bora, kissing her 
hands. 

*'How, impossible? It is very natural. I 
am not insane. I know very well what I am 
doing, and I do not ask that which is impos- 
sible. O my dear children! Can't you see that 
my son is again weak, frail, feeble, and little 
as when he was born.'' Can't you see that 
again he needs my help and my defense?'* 
"But we are here to defend him!" 
"What do you know about little children? 
Nothing. Only a mother can help here. O 
my dear children, let me stay here." 

Suddenly she grasped my hands, fell on her 
knees and implored me: — 

"O my son, my dear son, please understand 
me. I am a miserable woman. I have lost my 
only little one, but you can bring me happi- 
ness — yes, happiness — if you will let me die 
beside him." 

I stood confused. For the first time in my 
life I felt what it means when the mind ceases 
to act. Truly I knew nothing of myself; I felt 
only that the wild, quick, emotional throbs 
of my heart said, "Let her stay, let her stay.** 
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Cheda, who stood waiting, now came up. 

"Mother, you must go from here!" 

"What? I must? I must? Never! What is 
the power that can send me from here? Who 
is the wretch who will take a mother from her 
only little one? Who is this cruel one? Who 
is this monster? We mothers are the kindest 
beings, but if somebody dares to hurt our 
little birds, then we strike, we bite, we 
scratch! Do you hear? We bite, we scratch!" 
cried the poor mother, with changed voice 
and frightened eyes, with outstretched hands, 
showing her nails. 

Cheda lost his temper. 

"The woman is crazy," he said. "Two 
soldiers here!" 

"What are you doing?" I asked him. 

"I will order them to take this woman 
away." 

"Sergeant, go to your place!" I said to him 
sharply. 

For the first time I was Cheda's command- 
ing officer. He looked at me, astonished, then 
straightened up, gave me the regular salute, 
and said in a firm voice : — 
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THE PLACE OF THE SKULL 

"I understand, sir," and went to the left 
wing of the trench. 

The mother remained. I never can describe 
her happiness. To-day, I thought, a human 
Hfe is as cheap as a rusty parica, and the 
smallest pleasure is so expensive. Now an 
opportunity was given to me to give the 
greatest pleasure, and I gave it. I gave it to 
» Serbian mother. 



The night dragged its endless length along. 
The first streaks of dawn were appearing, 
when suddenly, over the river, somewhere in 
the blue mountains, there rang out a shot, 
then another, a third, a fourth. Then came 
faint whistles, and again four shots some- 
where on the right. The soldiers jumped, 
leaned on the wall of the trench, and grasped 
their guns. It was beginning. 

The worst moments come at the beginning 
of the battle. The soldiers are like drunken 
men in darkness. Nothing is known, and no 
one will show his position first. But to-day 
the fighting developed very quickly. The 
185 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



Bulgarians, proud of their victories, wished 
to be "entirely quit with their brothers" at 
once, and they began to shoot from all points 
with their artillery, following the German 
tactics: "wipe out first all before you and 
then march through the cleared place." 

At first I laughed at their wild shooting, 
for the shower of shells exploded far from us. 
But it grew serious. It seemed to me as if a 
muddy, turgid river, a raging flood, was rising 
up to swamp us. At first the Bulgarians had 
directed their fire only at the valley, wasting 
their ammunition. Or perhaps they wanted 
to clear their way through the valley by 
throwing aside the dead in it. Then they 
moved their fire to the pass, and then to the 
town. Nothing could be more appalling than 
to hear the hissing of the shells, which, as 
they flew through the pass like wild horses, 
lost their clear whistling sound, and became 
dull heavy thunder that shook the ground. 
Shortly after, behind us, over the hill back 
of the old cemetery, rose a thick black smoke. 

"They have set the town on fire, the black 
devils!" said Bora. 

186 



THE PLACE OF THE SKULL 

*' We are their sure victims, but the people 
in the town might fly, and so they want to 
finish them first," I said, trembling with anger 
and rage. 

"You see now that it is better that I re- 
main here," said the mother with a sad smile. 

Suddenly, before we expected, they turned 
their fire on the hills at both sides of the pass. 
It seemed to me as if the mouths of many 
wild beasts had opened and snarled at the 
same time. And the sound came toward us 
like a shrill screech, as when the ocean wind 
blows through the rigging of a lonely ship. 
At the same moment, the shells exploded with 
dreadful rapidity everywhere around us. We 
were deafened by the detonations. Immedi- 
ately after, the wind blew a thick stinging 
smoke into the trench, which bit our eyes and 
suffocated us. And from all directions fell 
earth and dry leaves. 

At the same time a black line rose from 
the bed of the river. The Bulgarians 
had crossed the Morava. Perhaps they had 
crossed last night and were hidden somewhere 
along the shore of the river. The line seemed 
187 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



endless, and thin as a thread. It moved 
quickly through the valley. I grasped the 
telephone: — 

"Hello! Fourth Battery!" 

It seemed as if a hundred men had spoken 
at the same time at the telephone. 

I cried as loudly as I could : — 

"Hello! Fourth Battery!" 

"Here!" answered a voice. 

I continued in the same loud tone: — 

"Direction river — forty-five hundred me- 
tres. Try with two cannon with a correction 
of two hundred metres." 

"Don't worry," answered the same voice. 

After a few moments something thun- 
dered terribly behind us and whistled over 
our heads — something which flew through 
space, rending the air. At the same time some- 
thing, like a sack full of sand, struck us in 
our backs so powerfully that we staggered. 
Our artillery had begun to fire. I took my 
field-glasses and looked into the valley. Two 
little white puffs of smoke showed there — 
one of them just over the black line. 

Again I took the telephone: — 
188 



THE PLACE OF THE SKULL 

"Fourth!" 

"Yes." 

"Correction excellent! Now to the right 
and the left from this point!" 

It looked as though the gate of hell had 
opened wide behind us. The white smoke 
wreaths appeared with great rapidity over 
the black line. The ranks swerved, wavered, 
and broke into many small parts. Some 
of these parts were lost in the smoke; some 
were leveled to the ground; all the others ran 
forward. From the right side of the pass 
our artillery opened up fire, working con- 
fusion in the Bulgar ranks; but the dark line 
quickly came into the dead angle for our 
artillery. 

Another line rose from the river. It ap- 
peared to me that the Bulgarians had directed 
all their cannon toward our Peaceful Hill, 
trying to find our battery. The shells struck 
the old cemetery, working tremendous havoc. 
The lindens were torn out by the roots and 
hurled into the air, the large stones of the 
monuments were cracked in pieces, and re- 
duced to dust. The air was filled with min- 
189 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



gled leaves and earth, and everything shook 
and trembled in that awful destruction. 

The second wave of the Bulgar attack met 
the same fate as the first, but though disor- 
dered, broken, and massed in small parts, it 
made its way across the valley. Suddenly the 
men of their first line rose from among the 
bushes, stones, and grass at the foot of our 
hill. When did they creep up? 

Our outposts at the bottom of the hill re- 
treated little by little up the slope. 

"Quick firing! eight hundred metres!" I 
shouted. 

Bora ran along the trench crying the same. 
An unspeakable booming and crashing began. 

Just then the third black line rose from the 
river. "Orderly!" I cried, as loudly as I 
could, turning toward the old cemetery. A 
soldier, who had been hidden behind a grave 
not far away, crept toward me like a serpent. 
He was black with earth and leaves, and 
streams of dirty sweat ran down his face. 

"Go tell the men at the machine-guns that 
I cannot come to give the order to fire." 

The soldier crept away. 
190 



THE PLACE OF THE SKULL 

Presently the machine-guns began firing. 
The sound was Hke that of a hundred klep- 
alas being struck at the same moment. The 
bullets began to fly toward us. They came 
in millions, literally covering every foot of 
earth. The earth in front of the trench looked 
like a corn-popper. They flew all around our 
heads, close to our ears, like hissing, stinging 
serpents, striking with deadly venom. 

Our fire and that of the machine-guns 
quickly forced the first line back, and held 
the second one stationary. A swarm of shells 
flew over our trench. It was like a whirlwind 
of fire; it was as if the air had become a fluid 
in which stones, earth, trees, leaves, clothes, 
guns, parts of bodies, human flesh and blood 
boiled and mingled, splashing from all sides 
those who were yet alive. We were as in a 
great kettle of surging horror. Our ears felt 
as if hot oil had been poured into them; our 
mouths were dry, open, and full of dirt. Our 
minds were stunned. Everywhere sounded a 
tumult of breaking bones, crashing, crack- 
ling, splitting — indescribable disorder and 
dreadful horror. Then, above the roar of 
191 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



bombs, rang out heart-rending screams, shrieks 
of agony, calls for help, and the groans of 
the dying. 

I ran through the trench encouraging the 
soldiers. Oh, the unspeakable scenes that I 
faced ! 

One of my men lay in the bottom of the 
trench. His head was a crushed and bloody 
mass mingled with the earth. The big black 
fellow who dug up the soldier's grave had 
stepped upon this dead body without know- 
ing it in his excited shooting; with every 
movement of his great boots the dark red 
blood flowed afresh from the crushed body. 

A little farther, a soldier raised his left 
hand from his gun. It was fearfully burned 
by the red-hot barrel. He looked at his black 
and swollen hand, smiled indifferently, grasped 
his gun again, and began to fire. 

Still farther, a soldier was leaning against 
the wall of the trench, apparently sitting 
quietly there. When I looked closely, my hair 
rose, my breath stopped. His eyes were 
glazed, his mouth open and filled with earth; 
his breast did not move. Both legs had been 
192 



THE PLACE OF THE SKULL 

entirely shot away and his body remained 
leaning against the wall like a doll. 

Another man was lying on his arm against 
the trench. He looked as if he were asleep. 

"Shoot!" I said and shook him. 

He fell. He was dead. 

The wounded were the most heartrending. 
There were so many, and they were every- 
where! Some were sitting in the trench, 
whimpering and trying to bind their wounds, 
from which the blood ran and fell upon their 
uniforms. Those who were standing stepped 
on their bodies, but they were past feeling. 



Still the battle raged on and came to its 
culmination. The pure air of God had become 
close and dark as in a cave, through which 
ran a fiery river of melted iron in which ter- 
rible explosions boomed and thundered. 

Those who lived were still firing. In the 
smoke and confusion they looked like large, 
black, bloody phantoms. Their faces were 
distorted, and streams of sweat ran down 
their cheeks. Their eyes were wide, glittering, 
193 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



and terrible. They were like stones. Did they 
breathe? I did not know, but they stood and 
fired. 

Stepping over the dead and wounded, cry- 
ing I know not what, I returned to the old 
place and looked for the mother. Why had I 
left her.'* The thought flashed through my 
head and I felt something clutch my throat. 
She had covered the coffin with her shawl and 
was leaning over it, her face hidden in her 
arms. 

Bora was at the right wing of the trench. 
When he saw me coming through the smoke 
and dust he ran toward me. He was, as al- 
ways in battle, smiling, singing, but very 
pale. He waved his hands to me, shouting 
something I could not hear. 

Then, suddenly, between him and me 
something turned white, flashed like light- 
ning, and exploded frightfully, as if the world 
had split in two. Something struck me heav- 
ily on my breast, threw me down, and flew 
above me. A dazzling light shone before my 
eyes for an instant, and then darkness — 

"It is nothing, sir! A little bruise! Why, 
194 



THE PLACE OF THE SKULL 

it's only a joke!" said the big soldier, lifting 
me. *'But Bora — " he added. 

This brought me to my senses, as a dash 
of icy water. 

"Bora!" I cried. 

I leaped to my feet and ran down the 
trench. Through the smoke, dust, and ruin 
I saw him. 

There are moments in our lives so horrible, 
so incomprehensible, so unspeakably terrible, 
that we have no feelings with which to under- 
stand or define them. And yet they are for- 
ever before our eyes. 

Bora was lying in the arms of the poor 
mother. A soldier held his head, which was 
nearly severed from his body. A dreadful 
wound gaped upon his neck; his whole body 
seemed so crushed, so shattered, that only 
his clothing held it together. The mother was 
dumb, stiff and rigid as a stone. She scarcely 
breathed. She fixed a constant staring look 
upon the wound, as if she could stanch 
the blood with it. Her face was frightfully 
changed, all twisted and contorted with hor- 
ror. Poor, poor mother ! What did you think 
195 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



at this moment? What had your suffering 
mother's heart felt? Oh, if you could tell this 
to the world, perhaps the world would change, 
would be different; perhaps it would be 
beautiful ! 

Bora did not die at once. Oh, the unhappy 
boy ! In him was so much life, virile youth, so 
much strength and force, that death itself 
stopped before him. His beautiful eyes were 
still open but forever dead. His hair w^as wet 
with blood. A thin stream of blood ran from 
his nostrils. His mouth opened to make a 
path for his beautiful soul. 

I howled like a wounded tiger; I jumped, 
raging as if insane and not knowing what I 
did. I kicked with all my strength at the 
earth before the trench. There is no need for 
any shelter now. Something terrible surged 
within my breast ! It is impossible that they 
were men who did this. Why then should I 
be a man? 

"Shoot! Kill, kill!" I cried hysterically. 

Then I seized a gun, but it seemed so little, 

so small before my rage, pain, desperation, 

and horror that I threw it away. I wished at 

196 



THE PLACE OF THE SKULL 

that moment that I might have the thunder 
of Jupiter, with which, in one stroke, I could 
destroy all the murderers of my friend. 

The battle raged on. Truly there was no 
air! All was changed, destroyed, heated! 
Those who were alive hardly knew if they 
were alive. Suddenly, in the midst of this 
boom and thunder, rose a terrible shouting 
from the valley, which sounded above every- 
thing else for a moment. There are no words 
or power to describe that sound. One might 
say that the devils in hell were singing! It 
was the howl of man when he becomes 
wild, enraged — when he yearns to drink hot 
blood. 

In the smoky valley, there were no more 
black lines, but an immense black mass, which 
ran toward us like a flood — 

"Oorah, ooraaa-h!" the yells rang out 
everywhere. So cry men who flesh their 
bayonets. 

A strange sound came to me. For a mo- 
ment I stood like a stone, then turned quickly. 
In the same moment the mother let go of 
Bora and fell. I ran and lifted her. From two 
197 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



places on her head ran blood, red blood on 
the white hair! 

"Mother, mother, are you wounded?" 

A happy smile passed over her face. Then, 
in a weak voice, "I am happy! I knew that 
I would not be separated from my son for 
long! Now we will be again together forever. 
Oh, forever to be with him ! Here, I am com- 
ing, my little one! " And weakly she embraced 
the coffin and put her head on it. From her 
white hair the blood ran onto the coffin. 

I leaned my head against the wall of the 
trench and was silent. I do not know if I 
breathed. I did not feel. 

After a short time the mother lifted herself 
with great pain. Then slowly she unbuttoned 
her dress and put her hand in her bosom. 
Immediately she drew it out. The hand was 
covered with blood. Only then I saw that she 
was shot in the breast too. She lifted her 
hand and looked at the blood on it for a 
moment. 

I felt my teeth chatter. The mother said, 
in a wonderfully clear voice : — 

"I have given to this world my greatest 
198 



THE PLACE OF THE SKULL 

sacrifice, my only one. But it was not enough. 
Now I give my blood, my life. Oh! I give 
them very freely, but only, I beg you, kill each 
other no more!" 

She clasped her bloody hands and the tears 
fell from her eyes. Suddenly she grew weak. 
The mother's last task was accomplished! 
She was no longer useful to this world ! With 
her last effort she raised herself and fell upon 
the coffin. 

Then I did not understand her words. Now 
I understand them very, very well. 

Then I saw a terrible picture. Bora was 
lying at the bottom of the trench, in darkness, 
in dust, in filth, mingling the blood of his 
wounds with vile earth, cut, crushed, terrible, 
and horrible. The mother died beside her 
dead son, killed by the enemy's bullet. It 
seemed to me that Serbia had died, too. It 
seemed to me that I looked on the death of 
Serbia and her children in the death of this 
mother and this son! 

With one leap I was out of the trench. 
There is no more trench, no more shelter, no 
more world, no man, no humanity! Nothing 
199 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



but raging lions waiting, and beasts, who, 
growling, are ascending the hill. 

What had been the new cemetery became 
very quickly an old one, for a third one, newer 
and much larger, had been created. 



IV 

OUR CHILD 

Four big fires warmed the miserable rem- 
nants of my company in this freezing night. 
Around each one were about ten soldiers sit- 
ting closely and lying against each other, 
bending with outstretched hands which looked 
very large in the firelight. In the red, bearded 
faces the eyes glittered strangely, full of tears 
from pain, heat, smoke, and wind. They were 
so close to the fire that their faces, hands, 
chests, and knees were burned, and yet they 
shivered; now and then, amidst the crackling 
of the fire, one could hear their teeth chatter: 
the icy wind, with raging shriek, swept piti- 
lessly over their backs, stiffening their necks, 
freezing their ears, and stabbing their sides 
like a knife. It is terrible when these two 
extremes meet on one tired body, when one 
side is burning and the other freezing. One 
had but to feel this to realize what hell is. 

For five days, since the battle of Lescovatz, 
201 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



we had had no chance to sleep, and, though 
this night was the first opportunity, no one 
had closed his eyes. Up to this time we had 
felt our national calamities; and weariness, 
misery, and hunger had crucified us; still, we 
could endure all these and live, and could eat, 
and sleep. But now had come something 
worse, something much more unbearable, 
more powerful than the yoke of natural laws 
which bind men. Now, something much more 
threatening and terrible hung over these four 
fires. It was the spirit of unyielding tragedy. 
Not only the spirit of the cruelty of one nation, 
which had destroyed the liberty of five mil- 
lion people, but the spirit which had broken 
the faith of those people and crushed their 
hearts and killed their hopes. Serbia's sol- 
diers had to-day for the first time fled; this 
was the crowning disaster. One must know 
the Serbian soldier in order to understand the 
full effect of this upon him. 

The Serbians had always fought for the 
liberty and happiness of their brothers. For 
four years they had won magnificent victo- 
ries from Kumanovo to Monastir, from Priz- 
202 



OUR CHILD 



rend to Scutari, from Prilep to the Adriatic 
Sea; they had captured Papaz-Tepe at 
Adrianople; they had said to the "Chessar" ^ 
from Cer, Yadar, Rudnik, Kosmaj, and Bel- 
grade that his idea of Strafexpedition was 
quite wrong; they had said to the Bulgarians, 
"For Slivnica, Bregalnica"; and, though at- 
tacked on all sides, they had defended with 
superhuman strength their ideals and their 
honor. 

Now, to-day, for the first time, they had 
fled I This, then, was the dark spirit which 
hovered over these four fires, which simply 
numbed every natural law; the spirit which 
caused these poor, half-dead men not to feel 
that the coat on their elbows was burning, 
that from their unkempt bodies the sweat 
was running, and that the skin on their necks 
was cracking open in the icy wind. 

This night for the first time I quite under- 
stood the words of a peasant soldier, who said 
to me while dying in my arms: "Wlien a 7nan 
is dying, perhaps society is guilty, but when 

* The name which Serbian people apply to the Emperor of 

Austria. 

203 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



a nation is dying, certainly humanity is 
guilty!" Bitterly I felt the tragic fate of my 
country. I knew the struggles and work of 
mankind of the last century, their democratic 
ideals, and I thought that this great human- 
ity will not be indifferent to these tragedies, 
nor permit its greatness to be diminished by 
the miserable cruelty of one of its members. 
It is impossible!^ 

This night was more terrible for me than for 
my soldiers. Events had given to me a heavy 
task and many responsibilities. I looked at 
these remnants of my company with great 
pain, sorrow, and fear. Besides, I was now 
alone; excepting Sergeant Trailo, not one of 
my sergeants remained. And, finally, I did 
not have any longer my Cheda. The loss of 
him made my unhappiness almost unsupport- 
able. Absolutely I could not reconcile myself 
to the loss of Cheda. For many reasons I 
had loved this sergeant of mine. He was so 
good and gentle. He was from the heart of 

^ The best proof that humanity is not an empty phrase and 
that "Deutschland liber alles " could not exist in this century 
is this, that to-day the whole world is against Germany. 

204 



OUR CHILD 



Serbia, from the part of the country most 
celebrated in our songs. I always took him as 
an example, as a type of my nation. I had 
entered into battle for the first time with him. 
He had helped me so many times, freely, 
from his whole heart, sacrificing his most 
precious things, and he had risked his life 
many times to save mine. And, from the time 
my captain was wounded and I became the 
commander of my company, Cheda helped 
me very much in this difl[icult duty, with his 
knowledge, his great energy, and the valuable 
experiences of an old soldier. And then I truly 
loved him, and those that we love we always 
want close beside our hearts never to be lost. 
The worst part was, that I did not know 
what had happened to him. After we had 
retreated from Lescovatz, we had fought at 
the position of Dobra-Glava for three days, 
retreating slowly and successfully. This last 
night we had come to Stubla, a little village. 
The positions around Stubla were very unfor- 
tunate for us; there was a chain of bare hills, 
which went from Bele-Crkve to Boshniak, 
and beyond this was the valley of Poosta- 
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SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



Reka, the last valley in all this part of Serbia. 
The work of my division, which, since Les- 
covatz, had conducted itself so finely, was to 
hold this valley until all our refugees, the 
army, and the trains of equipment should 
have crossed the passes of Medveja and 
Lebana, and arrived in safety. Afterwards 
we would, according to plans, cross the val- 
ley during the night, enter into the moun- 
tains, pass Lebane, and arrive in the rocky 
part of southern Serbia, where we could 
retreat slowly and safely, imposing upon the 
enemy heavy losses. We had made this plan 
at our headquarters, and up to this night, 
when we came to Stubla, it had developed 
successfully. 

But this night the Bulgarians, finding that 
their advance from Lescovatz was a failure, 
suddenly changed their tactics. Fifteen miles 
south of Lescovatz, near Vladichin Han, they 
crossed the Morava with large forces and 
very speedily advanced through the valley 
of Yablaniza toward Medveja. We heard of 
this about midnight, and it was like thunder 
from a clear sky to us. Right away came 
206 



OUR CHILD 



the order that two regiments of my division 
should immediately cross the Pusta River and 
hasten to Medveja. This was done at two 
o'clock, leaving at Stubla only the Fourteenth 
and my regiment to defend a position of ten 
miles. Two regiments ^ to fight six of the 
enemy's! The situation was dreadful! With 
the loss of two regiments the commander of 
my division had to make new arrangements, 
and we had only time to dig small and shallow 
trenches. The fighting began at five o'clock 
in the morning. 

As always, Cheda commanded the left 
wing, and I the right. The battle was such 
that a soldier of mine, an old warrior, a real 
giant, who had always said in any fighting, 
"Nothing! Nothing! It's only mild!" now 
exclaimed, "Auh! It is hot!" 

The Bulgarians acted quickly. Informed 
of the success of the southern army, they 
wished to push us into the valley, and here, 
between Medveja, Lebana, and Prokuplie, to 
hold us, so that they could, later, with the 
help of the Germans and Austrians, who were 

* Both regiments had lost half their men. 
207 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



coming from the north, capture alive many of 
our divisions. The fighting was dreadful, the 
day unforgettable, the conditions terrible, and 
fate without pity. At ten o'clock, thanks to 
our unfortunate position, the Bulgarians suc- 
ceeded in passing to our flank with their 
mountain artillery. At half-past ten the am- 
munition of our artillery was entirely gone, 
at eleven, that of my soldiers; and right away 
the Bulgarians made an assault. 

Now came the time when more than three 
thousand men must choose one of three 
dreadful possibilities; to be made prisoners, 
to commit suicide, or to fly. All three were 
equally terrible, and up to this time no Ser- 
bian soldier had chosen any one of these. To 
be slaves! A bitter laugh of derision rose. 
To commit suicide! This would take too 
much time. To fly! The next moment two 
regiments ran into the valley to a fearful fate. 

In this chaos I did not see Cheda. I had 
to pass with my two platoons through the 
village. When the Bulgarians saw the sol- 
diers in the village, their blinding rage was 
such that they threw aside the most elemen- 
208 



OUR CHILD 



tary rules of humanity. Paying no attention 
to the white cloths which hung over every 
door, they began to throw hundreds of shells 
at the poor village, destroying without pity 
the roofs which sheltered mothers and chil- 
dren . . . These miserable people, saving 
themselves from the ruin, smoke and flame, 
ran in all directions, wild with fear, terror, 
wounds, and pain. They screamed so that it 
overcame the thunder of shells, the crackling 
of flames, the falling of roofs, and the wild 
shrieks of the Bulgarians who were rushing 
on . . . 

Close to the village the river flowed. It 
was deep, wide, icy, and muddy. There was 
no time to seek a bridge. We threw ourselves 
into the river. The freezing waters came up 
to the chest and neck. The little ones fell and 
were carried away by the current. The weak 
and overtired were dead before they reached 
the river . . . 

Beyond the river was the valley, which 
seemed to me without end, full of white 
smoke puffs, because the shells of the Bul- 
garians were exploding everywhere. The 
209 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



dreadful cold of the river had stiffened our 
legs, and our wet clothes, which began to 
freeze, were heavy as lead. We could no longer 
run, but bravely stumbled on. Thus going, 
one man screamed and fell, and others struck 
their foreheads against the frozen earth 
without a sound. 

** Cavalry!" exclaimed a frightened voice. 
At the left side of the valley a long line came 
rapidly toward us. We held our breath. Then 
from all sides came the cry, "Cavalry!" 
There was wild confusion. Again we tried to 
run. The frozen clothing crackled, and the 
sweat streamed from our bodies. I had to 
stop quickly; I could no longer move; my 
strength was entirely gone. Afterwards I 
despised this play of destiny, giving us this 
paltry moment in which, a hundred times, 
to save our lives! We did not wish to be 
slaves, we had cast aside the thought of sui- 
cide, and so threw ourselves, with our last 
strength, against a cruel fate; and now will 
happen something worse, we have to be 
crushed and broken by the rack! One of 
my old soldiers who was always beside me 
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OUR CHILD 



stopped too. His clothes were white with ice. 
His face was distorted by the tremendous 
bitterness of an awful moment. He stared 
into the dim heavens, he spread out his red, 
cracked, and bloody hands, shaking his fist 
toward the sky, and from his breast came a 
bitter, vehement exclamation: — 
"God! God! Thou art not God ! " 
Suddenly, right before us, there was a ter- 
rible roar. We staggered. "Surrounded!" 
flashed through my mind. Oh, no! With rag- 
ing whistle and deafening roar the shells 
flew over our heads and fell beyond us, mak- 
ing havoc. Our artillery is in action ! I could 
not explain this to myself! For a moment a 
hush fell in the air. The Bulgarians had sud- 
denly become silent. It was too unexpected. 
A moment and the volcano before us again 
burst into flame. At the left side, where we 
had first seen the cavalry, we saw chaos; a 
moment after, the white smoke covered all. 
The shriek behind us was choked, and we 
again began to breathe. 

The soldier, who had cried out against God, 
was struck dumb in the rapid happenings of 
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these few moments. He stood open-mouthed, 
swaying like a tree in a strong wind. Suddenly 
he fell on his knees, looked up at the obscured 
sky, stretched out the same red hands toward 
it, and said in low tones : — 

"God! I thank Thee!" 

We retreated quietly to Zlata. We came 
here about four o'clock in the afternoon; we 
made fires, melting and drying our clothes. 
Our clothing had melted, but our hearts re- 
mained icy. My thoughts were as black as 
this night. How is it with Cheda? This ques- 
tion returned to me again and again with hard 
persistence. I could give no answer and my 
heart was torn by the pain. 



Just at the moment when I took out my 
watch to see what time it was, I heard voices 
in the night. In a moment my fire lit red 
figures which came closer. 

"Good-evening!" said Cheda, in a serious 

voice, as usual. For a moment I remained 

dumb. Then I jumped up with amazement, 

ran to him and embraced him. I felt that he 

212 



OUR CHILD 



was shaking and I was sobbing. Perhaps only 
my mother, if I ever see her again, shall I 
embrace so warmly and so tenderly. It was 
the embrace of two loyal friends in which, at 
the same time, were mingling the tears of a 
father and of a son. 

"Are you not wounded.'* Are you not 
deathly tired? How many soldiers have you 
brought.'* How many were killed? How many 
drowned? What is the news?" I asked him 
hurriedly, impatiently, for a hundred ques- 
tions burned upon my lips. 

This restored him. For a moment he 
straightened himself, took a full breath of 
icy air, sighed deeply, and again became that 
old man, serious, silent, quiet, little, and 
bent. Afterwards he slowly wiped his eyes 
with one hand. Then I noticed that he held 
something under his coat with his other hand. 

**They only touched me slightly on the left 
arm. It's nothing! I am good, if such a word 
has any worth to-day ! I bring about twenty 
soldiers . . . No one was drowned ... I 
passed over the bridge . . . All others were 
killed or perished. There is much news . . ." 
213 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



He spoke gloomily. I could see that it was 
not this which interested him now. "But 
first of all . . ." 

"What is this under your coat?" I inter- 
rupted. 

"This is what I want to tell you about first 
of all," he said with suddenly changed voice. 
"Here, see!" he whispered and then threw 
open his coat. 

Between his legs a child was standing, 
leaning its head against his body. It looked 
around with wide-open, frightened eyes. 

"A child!" I exclaimed. 

"I found it in the road half dead," said 
Cheda sadly. Never had I seen him so de- 
pressed. 

The soldiers who were sitting by the fires 
got up, made a large circle around my fire, 
looking with great interest and wonder at 
this little one, paying no attention to their 
shivering. Many were barefooted, because 
they had taken off their shoes in order to dry 
them around the fire. The soldiers whom 
Cheda brought were standing beyond him, 
silent, with red faces and drooping heads 
214 



OUR CHILD 



over which the bayonets glittered in the dark 
night. 

Cheda took the child tenderly, made it sit 
down by the fire, and stood over it, motion- 
less. The little one, in great pain, stretched 
his small frozen hands toward the fire. Long, 
disheveled hair, all mingled with frozen mud, 
fell upon his thin shoulders. He had no coat 
nor cap, and his clothes were torn. On the 
thin little neck was tied a large, dirty shawl. 
His little muddy, stiffened toes protruded 
through entirely worn-out shoes. It must be 
that they gave him dreadful pain, for he held 
them with both hands and began to rub them. 
Then he bent his little head still lower . . . 
suddenly, without a sound or sigh or moan, 
the large tears, oh, so many, began to fall 
from his eyes upon the dirty shawl which 
hung around his neck. I felt, too, that the 
tears came to my eyes, that my sight grew 
dim, and my head swam. In order not to fall 
I leaned against a soldier. The dreadful un- 
happiness of this little one, the piteous tor- 
ture of his little body, the misery and bitter- 
ness of his tiny being, and especially the quiet 
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bearing of his pain, had such an effect upon 
me that I held my breath, and my heart's 
quick throbbing echoed a painful question, 
"Is this possible, too?" 

The child still held his frozen toes, his head 
was yet bent, and the tears still flowed. Now 
and then a long quivering sigh shook his little 
suffering body. The men around the fire were 
silent. It seemed as if a gigantic mountain 
of misery lay upon this fire, and with its un- 
measured weight had pressed these poor 
human creatures as the ants are crushed 
under a careless foot. 

Cheda still stood over the child. I could 
see that he made great efforts to hold back 
the tears. 

"Oh, my good Cheda, I understand your 
pain," I thought within myself. "Yes, my 
good one, before this unhappiness, tears are 
nothing ! My Cheda, my good soldier father, 
I can imagine what is now in your heart, for 
seeing the dreadful condition of this child, 
you remember your own children, your three 
angels, and, with a deathly fear, you ask 
yourself: How is it with them now? Your 
216 



OUR CHILD 



heart and your soul fly to them, but your 
brain, unable to give answer to this ques- 
tion, makes horrible, unbearable imaginings 
from which one might become insane, or 
die . . ." 

I wished to run there to embrace him, and 
to take this child in my arms, to kiss him, 
to warm him on my heart and breast, to give 
him my life, but I could not move. But, in 
this unhappy child, this pure, innocent young 
soul, now so torn and almost killed, and this 
poor father, with pitilessly anguished heart, 
I saw the true life of Serbia, Is it life? No, 
this is crucifixion. The fathers, surrounded 
on all sides, fought and died, defending, in 
vain, that which is most holy, liberty. Their 
children, driven to all parts, endlessly going 
from bad to worse, hungry, barefooted, sick, 
waited for death, which came. And so di- 
vided, they died without embrace, without 
kiss, without a last farewell ! 

But all at once in my heart I felt a warmth 
melting the thick ice around it; and in my 
dark soul a torch lighted itself, which dis- 
pelled the darkness and bitterness. It made 
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SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



me straighten, filled my breast with freshness, 
and gave me new strength. Is it not so, my 
good man, who is reading these lines, that 
you, too, have felt this same warmth and this 
same light, when you were at the culmination 
of your unhappiness, when your heart was 
pitilessly hurt, w^hen your breast was stricken 
by the rough strokes of the reality of life, 
when on your shoulders a whole mountain of 
pain and sorrow was laid, and when your 
soul was frozen and dark? Is it not so? If 
this were not so, you would be stifled under 
the weight of unhappiness, or you would die. 
This warmth, this light, is hope. It is the 
most beautiful, the most holy gift of God, 
just because it comes in our darkest days. 
Hope not only saves our lives, but continues 
them and prepares them for the whole beauty 
of life. At this moment, brightened by the 
light of hope, my heart clearly and distinctly 
spoke to me : — 

"If it is a cross, resurrection must come! 

If the Son of God, fighting to save humanity, 

was crucified, his faith was resurrected, in all 

its beauty and might. If the Serbians are 

218 



OUR CHILD 



fighting for their liberty, it makes no differ- 
ence that they are now crucified; their Hberty 
must be resurrected again! Humanity was 
born to be free, and one of its miserable mem- 
bers cannot change this law. Serbia will not 
remain enslaved to Germany, for God and 
humanity will not permit this!" 

Cheered by this thought and full of new 
strength, I kneeled and kissed this little 
Christ. The child turned his head toward 
me, looked at me a long time with his beauti- 
ful tender eyes full of tears, and then sud- 
denly he threw his little arms around my 
neck and kissed me warmly. I do not know 
what he felt in his childish heart, for those 
are the secrets of nature which we do not 
understand, but / know that then, if ever, I 
got a kiss from an angel! Yes, from a little 
angel, for it seemed to me that these tragic 
but quiet tears, these silent sufferings of 
superhuman pains, without anger, without 
spitefulness, spoke to me: — 

"Father, forgive them, for they know not 
what they do!" 

"Father, forgive them, for they know not 
219 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



what they do — and they know not the great 
punishment awaiting them!" echoed in my 
heart. 



The soldiers whom Cheda brought had 
been a long time with the child and had 
become friends with him. They went to the 
fires to warm their frozen feet and limbs. My 
soldiers were still sitting around our fire and 
looking wonderingly at the child. 

He was sitting between my legs, wrapped 
in a blanket, eating popara ^ from a plate on 
his knees. Finding that we caressed him, took 
him on our laps, made him warm and gave 
him nourishment, he became at ease and 
wiped away his tears. Now and then he held 
his spoon in the air, looked around him at 
the wreath of red, bearded faces which all 
looked at him with tender eyes. Then he 
would smile. This smile of love and gratitude 
brightened painfully his tired face, but did 
not hover long upon it. His eyes sought 

^ Popara is niade from bread and water cooked with a little 
grease. 

220 



OUR CHILD 



Cheda the most and looked at him with the 
greatest tenderness. Cheda was sitting beside 
me, silent, with his head between his knees. 
Now and then he straightened up, caressed 
the child's hair and asked him tenderly: — 

"Are you warm now, my little one?" 

**Yes, my good cheeka." ^ 

When he had finished his popara, I asked 
him: — 

"What is your name?" 

"Rada." 

"How beautiful your name is!" I ex- 
claimed, and caressed his cheeks. 

"My real name is Radeevoy," said the 
child, "but my nana^ always called me Rada, 
and I like that best." 

"Where is your nana?" I asked. 

The child looked at me with his beautiful, 
sad, oh, so sad, eyes, which quickly filled with 
tears; his pale face quivered from inner, in- 
describable pain, and he slowly whispered : — 

"I don't know." 

* All older men the Serbian children address as cheeka, which 
means uncle. 

^ Serbian children call their mothers nana, which corre- 
sponds to "mamma." 



221 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



"And your father?" 

"He was killed at the first of the war," 
said the child sadly. 

The red wreath around the fire was gone, 
all heads had bent before the heart-rending 
sorrow of this child. There was silence ex- 
cept the crackling of the fire and the shriek 
of the wind. 

Then little Rada, seeing these kind men 
around him, seeing this tenderness and love, 
felt a need to open his heart, to share the 
great grief of his childish soul, to tell all his 
pain and sorrow, and thus to relieve the bit- 
terness which filled to overflowing his little 
heart. This child spoke strangely! A tiny 
victim of the awful fate of his nation, he had 
fought for his existence even as a man might 
fight. And so he was old far beyond his 
years. Though scarcely eight years of age, he 
understood perfectly many things, and many 
others that his brain could hardly comprehend 
he yet truly described, so deeply were they 
burned upon his mind. So from this innocent 
mouth came this almost incredible story. 

"I have told to cheeka Cheda that I am 
222 



OUR CHILD 



from Bogosavatz. And you know that this 
nice village is near Tser, between Shabatz 
and Loznitza. Hae! It was fine to live there! 
After the Turkish and Bulgarian war our 
zadrooga ^ was again in bloom. And my 
father and my uncle came back alive. 

*'IMy father was wounded in the arm and 
my uncle in two places, but both got well and 
they could work again. Our house was full of 
people, and our zadrooga was strong and 
powerful, for it was never divided. Deda 
(grandfather) was the head of zadrooga. How 
good my deda was ! You know, my father and 
uncle were his children. ^ly uncle had two 
little daughters, and I had two older brothers 
and one younger sister. Hae! How we did 
live in our house! To tell the truth, that win- 
ter after the Bulgarian war, we had suffered 
because those two years before we had not 
worked much in our fields, but my father had 
cut the wood, and carried it to Shabatz and 

* Zadrooga — the patriarchal family association, consisting 
of the head of the family (domatchin), his wife and unmarried 
daughters, his sons, and sometimes his nephews, and their 
children, all living in a group of small houses about the main 
family house in the village. 

223 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



got fine money for it, and so we lived. The 
next spring we all worked very hard. Bogo- 
moi! how we did work! We sowed all our 
fields, and the good God promised a fine crop. 
We were so happy again and so satisfied. 

"And now I cannot tell you just exactly 
why, but soon after Veedov-Dan,^ my deda 
became very sorrowful. And not only deda, 
but my father and uncle too. And still later, 
when we began to thresh, all the people in our 
home were so sad. Then I did not know why 
they were so sad and I was troubled, because, 
I remembered, before, even though I was 
very little, that during threshing there was 
so much shooting and songs and music and 
dancing. Now there was none of these, but 
all the people were silent and worked like 
bees, and in the evening they gathered be- 
fore our house and they talked very long and 
they scolded, and my deda read a paper. 
There must have been something terrible in 
this paper because my deda became very 

^ One of the greatest national Serbian holidays — the 15th 
of June. This same day, 1914, the Crown Prince Ferdinand 
was killed in Serajevo. 

224 



OUR CHILD 



angry and he would exclaim: *A Vranyo! A 
Vranyo ! ^ God shall pay you for this ! * 

"Just when we finished our threshing, one 
night the bells began to ring, the drums to 
beat, prangea ^ to shoot, and the beerov ^ ran 
along the road crying zeelcezatsia.^ So war 
came again ! My father and cheeka had to go 
right away. Bogo-moi ! how we children and 
baba (grandmother) wept! Deda talked to 
us, and my father said: 'Don't weep, be- 
cause the fathers who have little children can- 
not be killed. You see, I came back from the 
other war ^ alive.' 

"Then we were quiet because we believed 
our father. Cheeka went this same night, and 
my father the next day to Shabatz. Then our 
house became quiet as the dead and the vil- 
lage, too. Our school was closed, and deda 
would n't let me go after our flock of sheep ! 
My nana took me very often on her lap and 
I could hear her say: *A Vranyo, God shall 
kill you ! ' and I thought that God would cer- 

' Name which Serbian peasants use for the Austrian Em- 
peror, Franz Josef I. 

* Small gun. ' Village policeman. 

* He could not pronounce "mobilization." ' 1912-13. 

225 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



tainly kill him with lightning and then the 
war could stop right away." 

"And do you know who was Vranyo?" in- 
terrupted Trailo suddenly, angry and im- 
patient with the child. Trailo was a strange 
soldier. He was from the most wild, moun- 
tainous, and hidden part of Serbia. He grew 
as wild as the nature around him. When he 
was taken into military service, he liked it 
very much and remained in it. For nine years 
of military service he got the rank of sergeant. 
He grew up in the Homoly INIountains and 
had no education. He was naturally clever 
and had acquired considerable knowledge 
since being in the army. He was an excellent 
soldier, a fearless warrior, somewhat wild and 
rough in spite of his nine years of discipline, 
and was always angry if a private knew more 
than he. The serious talk of the child seemed 
strange to him, and he jealously compared it 
with his own knowledge, and so made this 
rough exclamation. 

Little Rada looked at him wonderingly, 
shrugged his shoulders, smiled, and said: 
"God with you! How could I not know who 
226 



OUR CHILD 



Vranyo is! He was the king of the Shwaba * 
who stole our Bosnia and Herzegovina, and 
who hates all Serbians, and because he hates 
us he is making war with us!" 

The soldiers began to murmur: "A very- 
wise child!" "A clever little head!" "A 
strange child ! " " How can he know all this? " 
Cheda became angry. He had listened to the 
child's story, and having children of his own 
he knew that little Rada was not so different 
from others, but terribly unhappy. So he 
began to chide the soldiers around him : — 

"What are you jabbering.'' Crazy! What is 
there strange here? Instead of this little one 
learning from his counting-frame under the 
tender chiding of his mother, instead of chas- 
ing butterflies and making toy whistles and 
popguns, a dreadful fate has compelled him 
to bind one day to another by pitiless hunger 
and hardship. And he has learned all. That 
is the difference! Is there anything strange? 
Now, shut up! — Go on, my little heart," 
he said tenderly to Rada and caressed his hair. 

* All Teutonic people are called "Shwaba" by Serbians. 
It is a Dame of derision. 



227 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



Rada wrapped himself closer in his blanket, 
took a small piece of wood, and began to poke 
the fire with it. Then he said very slowly and 
sadly : — 

"I thought my father never told lies, but, 
bogo-moi ! he told them. He said that fathers 
who have little children are not killed, but it 
was only two weeks after he went away that 
we heard that he was killed. Then it was ter- 
rible in our house. My nana screamed so, and 
tore her hair so, that I thought she would die, 
too; and because of that we children cried 
more. Baba got sick, and deda when he had 
put the black flag on our door wept, too; we 
had never seen him weep before. My nana 
did not want to eat anything, but she wanted 
to go away and find my dead father and bring 
him back to our village and bury him there. 
Only deda held her back. 

"I heard in our village, and from my deda 
and from my streena ^ too, that our place was 
very near to the frontier and that the Shwaba 
could come there very easily. The other 
children had heard the same, so together we 

» Aunt. 

228 



OUR CHILD 



all went to Laleecha Hill which was toward 
Loznitza, where we dug trenches, made flags, 
and swords, and slings, and carried pebbles 
from the brooks that we might be able to wait 
for the Shwaba and defend our village. 

"Bata Meele, my oldest brother, was our 
captain. You know he was the strongest boy 
in our village, and he said we should not fear 
the Shwaba even if many of them came. The 
whole village was so frightened. Nothing was 
talked of but how the Shwaba would come 
and kill all of us, and burn up everything. 
Then I was frightened, too, and I did not go 
to Laleecha Hill any more, but stayed beside 
my nana and my deda. Many were getting 
ready to fly, and once my streena said this to 
deda. Oh, bogo-moi, I never saw my deda so 
angry: 'What! To leave my home, my fields, 
my cattle, the black flag.'* Never ! And then the 
Shwabas are not Turks, they do nothing bad 
to the women afid children ! ' said my deda, and 
I became quiet because I believed him. Bogo- 
moi, you see, I know now that he told lies, too. 

''Since the beginning of war we had always 
heard cannon, but they were very far off. By 
229 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



and by we heard them nearer and nearer. 
And just at Sw. Panteleea [little holiday, 
August 30] the cannon boomed at Tser. All 
the people were frightened. From all the vil- 
lages around us the people ran through our 
village toward Valievo. And there were so 
many people ! All women and children ! Then 
many wagons of komora began to pass through 
our village toward Valievo. And the soldiers 
were everywhere. Bogo-moi! There were so 
many! They went everywhere and toward 
Tser. 

"After two days the cannon were heard at 
Laleecha Hill and even the guns, and this was 
very near. Then no more people nor komora, 
but soldiers and wounded went through our 
village. You know, a hundred wagons full of 
wounded had passed along our road, and how 
many walked I could not tell you. The whole 
day I did nothing but stand on our fence with 
a jar of water, giving it to them. And nana 
stood at the door and gave pogacha,^ honey 
and sugar, always saying : * For the sake of the 
soul of my soldier.* 

^ A sort of hard bread. 
230 



OUR CHILD 



"The third day, early in the morning, our 
soldiers began to dig trenches at our Laleecha, 
you know, just there, where we dug them be- 
fore. Then the cannon boomed very near. 
At noon our soldiers began to shoot from 
Laleecha, but the Austrian shells fell in our 
village. Oh! Bogo-moi! How terrible it was 
then! Then our deda was frightened and or- 
dered us to go down to the cellar. Afterwards 
there came many women with their children 
from our neighborhood to our cellar, because 
our house was made of stone and was very 
strong. Bogo-moi ! How all the women cried 
and the children screamed! My nana took 
me and my little sister in her arms, and bata 
Bora, you know he was my brother next older 
than me, was sitting on the ground with his 
head hidden in nana's lap. Nana did not cry, 
but kissed us and told us to be silent. And 
my bata Meele stood at the door of the cellar 
and cried to us often: 'Don't be scared, La- 
leecha is still holding!' 

"Then the night came, and you know how 
terrible it is in the cellar at night! I thought 
that no one could see to work in the night; 
231 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



because of that I thought they would stop 
shooting. But I was mistaken. They began 
to shoot more, so that our whole house shook 
like a little straw. Then I thought that *they * 
must be real devils because they could see in 
the darkness. 

"Suddenly bata Meele, who always went 
to the door, cried: 'Fire! Fire! The whole 
village is in flames!' Oh! Bogo-moi! How we 
all began to moan and scream! My nana 
kneeled and told us to kneel and clasp our 
hands. Then I and bata Bora kneeled, and 
even our little sister, and we clasped our 
hands, and nana took them in hers and we 
said our prayers to God. Stanikich's house, 
you know, the house of our neighbor, was 
all in flames, and the light came through the 
windows, and the cellar was as light as day. 
Then I saw that all the women and children 
were kneeling and saying their prayers to 
God. 

"Suddenly my deda came in carrying the 

black flag, and said to my nana: 'Take off 

Rada's shirt and tie it beside this black flag. 

His shirt is white and, besides, that is luck, 

232 



OUR CHILD 



too ! ' ^ Then my nana began to cry, too. And 
I felt that she was shivering all over when she 
took off my shirt. Then she tied the sleeves 
of my shirt beside the black flag, and deda 
carried it out. Then my nana kissed me hard 
so many times. When deda came in again he 
said to us that we must not cry any longer. 
Oh, how beautifully my deda spoke! I could 
not exactly tell you all he said, but he talked 
so beautifully that all the women stopped 
crying, and only the children still cried. Then 
my nana took me and my little sister in her 
arms again and bata Bora hid his face in her 
lap. Little sister went to sleep, but Bora and 
I could not sleep. The cannon boomed still 
louder and the house shook more and more. 
And so the night passed. 

"Before morning the cannon stopped, but 
the guns began shooting terribly right in our 
village. A little while after a horrible yell 
came. Then the women began to cry again 
and the children moaned and wailed. I was so 
frightened that I could n't cry. But it was 

^ The white garment of innocent children is thought to save 
from evil those who carry it. 

233 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



not for a long time. The guns grew less and 
less and the yells farther and farther, and 
after a while we heard nothing. Yet no one 
moved in the cellar and we were all still. 

"I think, about noon, we heard voices right 
in our yard. Deda exclaimed: *Pst! Not a 
sound ! ' And my nana put her hand over lit- 
tle sister's mouth because she was crying. 
Suddenly the door of the cellar opened and I 
saw plainly four of the Shwaba's soldiers. I 
thought that the Shwabas could not speak our 
language, because I heard from my teacher 
that they speak their own language, but now, 
one of them cried in exactly our Serbian lan- 
guage:^ *Hey, is somebody dowTi there?' We 
were all silent. Then the Shwabas began to 
laugh and to shoot at us.^ Oh! Bogo-moi! 
How dreadful it was! The women and chil- 
dren fell to the ground. There was terrible 

^ In Croatia exists the so-called "Franks'" political party. 
The Austrian Government in its "device," "Divide et im- 
pera," had succeeded so far in severing these people that they 
had become enemies of Serbia. Croatians speak the Serbian 
language. 

^ How the Austrians waged the war in Serbia one might see 
from the books of R. A. Reiss, Professor of Lausanne, Dr. A. 
van Tienhoven, of Amsterdam, and from the official editions 
of the Serbian Government. (Author.) 

S34 



OUR CHILD 



screaming and moaning! Oh! Bogo-moi! My 
grandmother fell and deda right away beside 
her. I thought he was killed too. Oh, I 
can't tell you all, for I don't know all. Only 
I distinctly saw when bata Bora's head was 
smashed in nana's lap. After that I don't 
know anything that happened. My nana had 
screamed so and pressed me and my little 
sister so, so hard in her arms that I thought 
she would choke us. Afterwards, deda told 
me that he thought they would never stop 
shooting and that we would all be killed, but 
that one among the Shwabas said: 'Don't 
shoot any more, you make a hole in the casks 
of brandy!'" 

As the little martyr revealed his unhappy 
heart in this icy night, the soldiers drew more 
and more close, making a crowd. At the last 
words of little Rada many of them got up 
and kneeled, paying no attention to the heat 
and stifling smoke; they bent toward the 
child, putting both hands near their ears, 
and listened to the little one with open mouth 
and staring eyes. Oh, those eyes! That one 
had seen them at this moment! Perhaps one 
235 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



could then understand what the culmination 
of horrors created by pain and weakness 
means. Cheda still sat quietly beside me. 
Only he bent his head still lower between his 
legs, letting his hands fall to the ground, 
clenching the frozen earth with his nails. 

Little Rada, who perhaps in his angelic 
innocence and his ideal childish heart, did 
not fully realize the dreadfulness of his story, 
seeing this look on the soldiers' faces, became 
frightened and asked in a scared way : — 

"Do you want that I should tell you still 
more?'* 

An old soldier, nearest to Rada, all black, 
with great tears running down his dirty 
cheeks (auh! it is only from smoke!), said to 
him: — 

"Tell us, tell us, little one! We are listen- 
ing to you. Afterwards it will be much easier 
for you. I know it!" 

Rada, in a scared way, lifted his head, and 
looked at me questioningly with his beautiful 
eyes. I shivered. In this one look I under- 
stood what we were to each other and felt 
how much I was beginning to love him. I 
236 



OUR CHILD 



wanted to kiss him, but I was ashamed, and 
only pressed him more closely in my arms 
and whispered : — 

"Go on, my little heart!" 

"Right away after," proceeded Rada more 
seriously and sadly, "they took us out from 
the cellar. Then I saw that our yard was full 
of soldiers who took us to the soodnitsa. ^ Oh ! 
Bogo-moi! How many people were there! 
And how frightened they were! The little 
children did nothing but scream, and the 
older ones did not cry, but they shivered, and 
even my deda too. The Shwabas had sur- 
rounded us from all sides. How they swore 
and laughed. Some of them we could under- 
stand, but the others we could not at all. 
We could see that they were very angry. But 
the most important among them was a cap- 
tain. Oh! Bogo-moi! He was raging. Even 
the Shwaba soldiers shivered before him. He 
did not know Serbian at all, but he had beside 
him another oflScer who spoke Serbian as well 
as my teacher. And this one raged and swore 
terribly. 

» Town hall. 

237 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



"Suddenly the captain began to laugh like 
a crazy man and talk to the other who knew 
Serbian. And this one began to laugh still 
more. Then he came closer to the people and 
said: *A11 the children on one side, and the 
older ones in one line!' Oh! Bogo-moi! And 
nana held my little sister in her arms, but 
when she heard these words she screamed and 
staggered. Only deda held her and kept her 
from falling. She grasped us in her arms and 
cried: 'I will not give up my children!' But 
a Shwaba soldier came to her, swore at her 
awfully, and tore us from nana's arms, and 
carried us to the steps of the soodnitsa where 
all the other children were. Auh! How 
many screams there were! Many children 
wanted to run back to their nanas but the 
Shwabas who were standing near the steps 
pushed them with their guns, or feet, or legs, 
and they fell back again. I was holding my 
little sister. I kissed her and begged her not 
to cry, but she cried more and more until I 
thought she would strangle. 

*'Then the Shwaba soldiers began to beat 
the people and put them in one line. My nana 
238 



OUR CHILD 



was standing beside deda. My good nana! 
Oh, my poor nana ! She was as pale as death, 
she swayed like a tree in a gale, and on her 
skirt she had a big splash of blood from bata 
Bora's head. Oh, my poor bata Bora! But 
my deda always said that it was much better 
that he was killed in the very beginning. I 
did not see bata Meele nor my aunt. We 
never knew what happened to her. My nana 
never took her eyes from us. 

*'Then the captain stopped laughing and 
came to one end of the line, and began to 
pinch the cheek of every one in the line. Oh, 
how terribly this nasty man pinched! Poor 
men! Every single one who screamed was 
carried ofif right away somewhere by two 
Shwabas who ran to him. Afterwards, deda 
told that they were killed right off. When 
the captain came to my deda, my breathing 
stopped! But my deda did n't scream! Be- 
cause, you know, my deda was a very strong 
man. And when he came to my nana, I 
wanted to run to defend her, but I could n't 
because my feet were heavy (with terror). 
And when that wolf lifted his hand to pinch 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



my nana, I hid my head on my sister's breast 
and waited to hear my nana scream. Oh, 
thanks to thee, God! My nana did not 
scream. WTien I lifted my head and opened 
my eyes, I saw the captain laughing and 
pointing to the blood on nana's lap. Then 
my nana suddenly turned red, and shivered 
all over and shook her hands, crying very 
angrily: 'This is the blood of my child whom 
you have killed. Inhuman man ! ' My heart 
stopped beating. What will happen now? 
When the other officer told the captain what 
my nana said, both began to laugh again, 
and went farther to pinch the people. I grew 
easier. 

"When they were through with pinching, 
many people were taken away, but many 
stayed. Then the officer ordered that all the 
people come closer to the steps where the 
children were, and he went up on the porch 
and began to talk. I could n't tell you all he 
said, but he swore terribly. Finally he ex- 
claimed : — 

"'Listen now, beasts! The whole of Serbia 
is under the Austrian Emperor now. There 
240 



OUR CHILD 



is no longer a Serbian king. He is a slave as 
you are. Because of this you have to love 
only one Emperor and this is Franz Josiv.* 
Now, when I say, "Long life to Franz Josiv 
the First," you must all say, "Long life!" 
Boga-vam! Every one who will not say it 
will be hung right away. You understand 
me, swine!' 

"Oh! Bogo-moi! I nearly died from fear. 
What will happen now to my little sister? 
She did n't know anything! Oh, you know, 
she was so little, and she cried and cried . . . 
I wanted to bend down to her and tell her to 
say, 'Long life,' but I did n't dare to move. 
And nana and deda from above looked at 
us so with then- eyes. The Shwabas came so 
close to us and looked sharply into every- 
body's face. The captain was standing near 
the steps turning in all directions. I must tell 
you that they did not notice the children so 
much, excepting one soldier, who was all red 
and terrible and who just stared up at us. 
Oh! Bogo-moi! Perhaps he was the most 

* Little Rada could not pronounce the name of His Apostolic 
Majesty, Franz Josef the First. 

241 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



drunk of all the Shwabas. And my little sister 
still cried and cried . . . 

" Suddenly the officer yelled from the porch: 
'Long life to Franz Josiv the First!' Immedi- 
ately I cried 'Long life' as loudly as I could, 
so as to overcome the crying of my little 
sister. But I did n't even finish before the red 
soldier grasped my little sister, like a sack, 
and took her down to the captain's feet. And 
many other Shwabas had pulled many men 
and women from the crowd by their beards 
or necks. There was a terrible noise! I ran 
down to my little sister, and my nana was 
there. Yaoy ! How she clasped her! The 
officer ran down from the porch. Bogo-moi! 
how he swore! How he struck the people! 
He would n't listen to the older people, but 
sent them somewhere, tying some of them 
first with ropes and cords. When they were 
done with them, then the officer went to my 
little sister. Bogo-moi ! How ugly he looked ! 
A real devil! But he only exclaimed: 'Aeh, 
little swine! You will have to learn in your 
littleness that you must love the Emperor. 
But we will try to teach you how now!' Then 



OUR CHILD 



my nana fell on her knees and began to beg 
them. Poor nana! How she wept, how she 
begged: *0h, su*, so help me God, she does n't 
know anything! You see how little she is! 
She loves your Emperor! We all love him! 
Don't do anything to her, please, I beg you, 
don't! Truly she is so, so little! Here, kill 
me!' 

"I kneeled and begged them too. Even I 
wanted to kiss the hand of the captain. Then 
they began to talk something in their lan- 
guage, among themselves, for a long time. 
Finally, the officer asked my nana what her 
name was and wrote it on a piece of paper 
and put it in his pocket, and said to the red, 
drunken soldier: *To Shabatz!' Then the 
soldier lifted my nana, and another one 
grasped me, and took us to the church close. 
And so we were separated from our deda. 

"In the church close were many people 
standing in rows of four, and around them 
were lots of Shwabas with guns. When we 
came there they put us, too, into rows. My 
nana held me and my sister in her arms and 
kissed us often. Quickly we started from 
243 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



there. Oh ! Bogo-moi ! I could n't tell you 
all; it was a dreadful journey. All that night 
and all the next forenoon we walked and 
walked. How the Shwabas beat the poor 
men and women who could n't walk any 
farther! My nana carried my little sister all 
the way, and many times she wanted to carry 
me, but I did not let her. My poor nana! I 
knew how she suffered ! I could hardly walk. 
Many times I just could rCt go any farther, 
and I felt as if I must fall. But then I thought, 
if I fall, my nana will stop, and if she stops, 
they will strike her right away. And so I kept 
going. 

" The next day at noon we came to Shabatz. 
Bogo-moi! If you could only see Shabatz! 
All the houses were destroyed and burned 
down. And everywhere so many Shwabas 
with flowers in their caps! How they sang! 
How they shouted! And the big *tombiles'^ 
were whirring in all the streets ! They locked 
us up in a magaza^ near the church; it had 
no roof because it had been broken in. We 
were very cold and wet by the rain many 

^ Automobiles. . * A large warehouse. 

244 



OUR CHILD 



times. Bogo-moi, how many people were 
there! But only women, girls, and children. 
We were just piled on top of each other. 
But after a few days there were less and less, 
because the Shwabas, in the nights, took out 
a great many of the girls, and even the 
women, our mothers. How terribly their 
children cried. But it was easier for us who 
were left. Then we could lie down on the 
ground. The Shwabas did not give us any- 
thing but bread and water. 

"The very jBrst day my little sister got 
sick. She would n't eat the bread at all, but 
she asked for so much water. My nana cried 
and held my sister all day long, she moaned 
so sadly. Oh! Bogo-moi! Every time a 
Shwaba came in, my nana begged him piti- 
fully to bring a doctor, but not one would 
listen to her. And so these awful days went 
by. I was sick, too, but I did n't dare to tell 
my poor nana. 

"One night, when none of us slept because 

there were so many sick children, and women, 

too, who moaned terribly, we heard cannon 

very far off. Oh, if you could have seen these 

245 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



poor people then! Everybody got up and 
began to whisper: 'They are coming!* 'Here 
are Serbians coming!* *They will save us!* 
Bogo-moi! How glad and happy I was! My 
nana kneeled over my little sick sister, folded 
her hands, and said: *0 God, God help them! 
Help them that they can help us!* 

"But next day, early in the morning, when 
we heard the cannon nearer, a soldier came in 
and read nana's name. I got so stiff! What 
will happen now? The soldier ordered my 
nana to take my little sister and follow him, 
and he took me under his arm like a goone. 
We went through the town a long ways until 
we came to a big house which had not been 
spoiled very much. When we went into a 
room, I saw the officer who had spoken Ser- 
bian in our village. I was so frightened, when 
I saw him, that both ray legs were numb. In 
the room were three other officers. They 
looked at us very angrily for a while. After- 
wards the officer came close to nana and said : 
' You see, we saved the life of yoiu* daughter, 
even though we had the full right to kill her. 
Now, you have to do something for us.* He 
246 



OUR CHILD 



turned to the other officers and they talked 
in the Shwaba's language very seriously. My 
nana was standing, as white as the wall, and 
my heart was beating awfully. Then the 
officer turned to nana again and said, very 
sternly: 'Kiss your children, for this will be 
the last time, if you are foolish and do not 
listen to us.' 

"My nana only screamed and fell on her 
knees and began to cry : * Oh, sir, don't, I beg 
of you, don't do anything to my children ! Do 
anything you want with me, but not with 
them. Oh, please, I beg you as of God! I 
have already lost two of my children and these 
two are all that are left to me!' The officer 
got very angry. * Crazy animal ! We will not 
do anything to your brats! All we want of 
you is to go to a place, which we will tell you, 
and come back.' 

"When my nana heard this she began to 
cry more and to plead: *0h, sir, good sir, I 
cannot leave my children alone! Look here! 
Look here, how sick my little one is ! So help 
me God, she is terribly sick! Oh, my God, she 
is dying! And she will certainly die without 
247 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



me! ' The officer got so angry that he stamped 
on the ground. The other officers got up and 
came closer. And they swore terribly. The 
officer then came very close with his face to 
my nana's face, and began to shake his fists, 
and scream: 'Ah, because of that we will be 
sure that you will come back. We do not ask 
anything very terrible from you! You know 
the whole district? Now, you will go to a 
place which we will tell to you, you will see 
there something which we will tell to you, 
and you will come back right off and tell us 
what you saw. This place is not very far from 
here. To go there, to see what we want, and 
to come back will take three days. You will 
see your children again after three days! But 
if you do not come back in the morning of the 
third day, at noon both of your children will 
be killed! Hae! killed, killed!' 

"My nana fell with her face on the ground. 
Oh, I can't tell you how awful it was! My 
nana got up very quickly and began to clasp 
and kiss the knees of the officers and she 
begged terribly. I kissed both hands of that 
wolf officer. And my little sister was lying on 
248 



OUR CHILD 



the ground, writhing with pain and crying 
dreadfully! Oh! Bogo-moi! Even an icy 
stone would have grown soft at my nana's 
crying, but these men were real devils and 
they would not hear anything. Not anything! 

"Then two soldiers came in — two terrible 
soldiers — and took us from our nana — my 
poor nana — my good nana — how she 
scratched, terribly scratched everybody — 
and struck, struck their ugly faces! And I 
scratched and bit, too, and cried. But they 
tore us from our nana — and they threw us 
out — oh! Bogo-moi! I never — I never saw 
my nana again — never again my good nana 
— my poor — " 

Slowly and more slowly the unhappy child 
spoke and his last words died away in the icy 
night. In my arms he grew silent, with his 
head laid against my breast. There was a 
heavy stillness. Only the freezing wind rose 
higher and higher and the fire was going out. 
On my hands I felt the hot tears fall, the silent 
quiet tears of little Rada . . . 

*'0h, kookoo-mene!"i 

* Exclamation of sorrow. 
249 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



Afterwards Rada went on again sadly. 
Oh, I can never tell you how sad this little 
voice was. 

"Oh, kookoo-mene ! After two days, the 
Serbians came to Shabatz, but too late. My 
little sister died. Oh! Bogo-moi! How all 
those women in the magaza cared for my sick 
sister after our nana was gone. One of them 
had even torn her chemise in pieces and put 
them in cold water to lay on sister's head. 
I said prayers all day to save my little sister, 
but God did not listen to me . . . 

"Afterwards the Serbian soldiers took me 
back to my village where I found deda and 
bata Meele. How we kissed each other and how 
we wept! Now deda cried like a little child 
. . . Then how terribly sad were the passing 
days ! The whole day we would sit in our big 
house without talking. Afterwards we fled 
again away down to Arangelovats. When the 
Shwabas were driven out again, we came back 
to our home. Winter came. Awful winter! 
W^e did n't have anything in the house and 
we had to live on bread which we got from 
our Government. Then bata Meele got sick 
250 



OUR CHILD 



from teevooz.^ Just at Christmas Eve we 
thought he would die. But, Frantsoozee ^ 
put something [serum] in his back and he got 
well. When the springtime came, deda and 
bata INIeele began to work right away, because 
everybody said our country needed much 
wheat and every one must work. How they 
worked and worked ! The soldiers helped, too. 
I took care of the poor sheep which the 
Shwabas had not taken or killed. Hae! How 
few of them were left! But I loved to take 
care of them because I was in the mountains 
all day,^ and I liked to be alone. 

"That year just when we wanted to thresh 
the wheat, the Shwabas came again just as be- 
fore, and fought us with all their power. We 

* Typhus exactematicus, which had, at the end of 1914 and 
the first of 1915, destroyed one third of all the Serbian popu- 
lation. The cradle of this horrible disease was Valevo after the 
second retreat of the Austrians, where they left more than six 
thousand men sick with this dreadful fever. (Author.) 

* Little Rada meant the French doctors who came im- 
mediately to Serbia and bravely fought this dread disease. 
Thanks to the French doctors the disease did not completely 
destroy the population. Serbia had about five hundred doctors. 
And after this fever had raged one month, one hundred and 
fifty of them were dead. 

^ Serbian children are brought up to be alone with the 
flocks. 

251 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



had to fly again. We had ox- wagons and we 
went in them. Oh, how many, many people 
had to go! When we came to Valevo, there 
were so many people that I thought the whole 
of Serbia was flying, and it was very hard to 
move along the road. Oh, Bogo-moi! One 
dark rainy night when we were in the great 
mountains, our wagon tipped over. I was not 
hurt, but bata Meele sprained his leg and poor 
deda's head was awfully bruised. Oh, my poor 
deda! He died after two days. 

"Then I and bata Meele went on alone. We 
could n't ride because our oxen were killed, 
too. How we suffered! Everywhere were so 
many, many people! Everything cost so 
much and we did n't have money. Oh! Bogo- 
moi! How long we walked! When we came 
to Krushevatz I lost my bata Meele. I never 
saw him again. One day he heard that the 
Government would bring some wagons with 
soldier's bread and that it would be given to 
the people. He ran right off to the station and 
told me to wait on a bench for him. I waited 
and waited, but he never came again. Then 
I looked for him everywhere for a long time, 
252 



OUR CHILD 



but I never found him. Only I heard that the 
people around the wagons were so thick that 
many were killed. 

*'Then I had to go entirely alone. Oh! 
Bogo-moi ! When my bata Meele was with me 
he knew how to get bread, but when I was 
alone I did n't know how. Oh, such dreadful 
days! Many times I thought I would die, 
but the soldiers passing would give me some- 
thing to eat; so I went on. But on the last 
road I did not see any more soldiers, only hun- 
gry people like me. In the last few days I 
could not walk any more — my shoes were all 
worn out — my feet froze — I was so hun- 
gry — I thought — I will surely ..." 

A long painful sigh broke from little Rada's 
lips, and I felt two powerful hands lift him 
from my arms. The fire had gone out. It was 
pitchy dark and the wind shrieked louder and 
louder. But yet through its shriek I heard be- 
side me the moaning of little Rada and his 
sweet little voice: — 

"My good, my good cheeka Cheda!" 



253 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



"What will we do with him?" I asked 
Cheda later when the soldiers had rebuilt the 
fires and the child was sleeping between him 
and me. At my question Cheda started, lifted 
his head, and looked at me. 

"How, what will we do? Keep him!" 

"Ah, Cheda, I did not doubt this for a 
moment. Only how, how?" 

"What! More than seventy men cannot 
keep a child!" exclaimed Cheda in great 
astonishment. 

"Oh, Cheda, seventy men! To-day we 
are ; to-morrow we are not ! Why do you count 
us? And then, there are marching, flying, re- 
treating, hunger, cold, snow, and a hundred 
other pains! How can a child, a little one, 
endure all these?" 

For a moment Cheda was still. His face 
darkened with great sorrow. Then he made 
a resolute gesture like a man who makes a 
decision in his mind, and he said : — 

" Can you not see that he has suffered much 

more than we? Poor little one, he is used to 

enduring the greatest hardships! I beg of you, 

Meecha, listen to me. When I found this 

254 



OUR CHILD 



child moaning and dying on the ground, oh, 
my God! you can't imagine how dreadful it 
was to me! Because I am a father I have will- 
ingly become a man with blood-stained hands, 
a murderer, in the defense of these little ones. 
But why talk? You know that my Boshko is 
Rada's age . . . and that is all. Thanks to 
God, we still have our komora and four 
horses along with it. Three of them have to 
haul, but Beeja, the little horse, has not had 
to work since Lescovatz. Rada can ride on 
Beeja. Julock has charge of the komora, you 
know. He will keep Rada as carefully as his 
own eyes, for he is a father and loves children. 
The komora is never in danger, at least from 
the Bulgarians. When Julock brings the ra- 
tions at night, he might bring little Rada along 
so we can see him. Julock comes soon now. 
Do you not think we should give Rada to 
him.?" 

**Yes, yes, Cheda, but . . .'* 

I, too, had thought of giving Rada in 
charge of the equipment trains, for these were 
usually together and went ahead of the com- 
panies, sometimes as far as five or ten miles. 
255 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



The commander of each company's komora 
returned at night with one horse, bringing the 
company's rations which he distributed. 
Certainly Rada would be safe with the 
komora. 

Byt, I anxiously thought, what can he eat? 
Wliere will he sleep? And, looking down on 
the little figure under the thin blanket, I 
cried out: — 

"Can you not see that he is naked and 
barefooted?'* 

Cheda started as if struck, and sighed : — 
I "Yes, how can we send him?" 

Suddenly the soldiers, who were still sit- 
ting around my fire, began to move and 
whisper among themselves. And from among 
them a loud, decisive voice spoke: — 

"Eh, that 's very easy ! " 

I started, and Cheda jumped, knelt and 
peered into the crowd. 

"WTio is that?" he asked excitedly. 

A small soldier whose clothes were ragged 
and burned, with his cap falling over his ears 
down to his shoulders, crept up to him and 
said : — 

256 



OUR CHILD 



"That's me, Sergeant. You know I am a 
tailor, and I could make a suit for him, and 
I . . ." 

"Shut up, crazy! From what?" Cheda was 
out of patience. 

After these words the soldiers began to 
move and whisper among themselves. One 
after another they slowly got up, hiding be- 
hind each other, and went out somewhere in 
the darkness of the cold, windy night. Pres- 
ently they came quietly back again, some- 
what abashed. One came closer to the fire, 
carrying in his hand a coat, and said in an 
embarrassed manner: — 

"Why . . . you know. Lieutenant, that I 
have two coats. And this one I cannot carry 
any longer; it is too heavy . . . you could 
make something for the little one from it." 
And he threw the coat down beside the fire. 

Another came, carrying a pair of trousers, 
saying very quickly: — 

"Here, you can see that I have two pairs of 

these. Boga-me! Two pairs of trousers! It is 

so warm. I just want to throw one pair away ! 

You can see for yourself — " And he opened 

257 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



his overcoat. I recognized the thin, green, 
summer trousers which Serbian soldiers got 
last year from Russia. 

Afterward a young soldier came to the 
fire. He was the youngest and most handsome 
man in my company, whom we always petted. 
He tried to hide something in his hands, and 
said simply, though quite embarrassed: — 

"I have a pair of stockings, a pair of em- 
broidered stockings. I have kept them care- 
fully. I got them from my girl, from my 
sweetheart, when I left the village. But . . . 
listen, shnaitsa, cut off the toes, and sew 
them up again, and then they will fit little 
Rada . . ." 

Our glavonya ^ just flew to the fire, and 
dashed his cap on the ground, scolding ex- 
citedly : — 

"Well, I will not suffer from you any 
longer. You are too small! And since my 
hair grew so bushy you won't go on. I al- 
ways had to tie you with a string, which just 
killed me under my chin. Eh, you won't much 
longer!" 

* A man with a very large head. 
258 



OUR CHILD 



And so on. Everybody gave something, 
and all did it with a willing heart. The pile 
of gifts grew wonderfully. Not only was there 
enough for Rada, but for ten other children. 
The little tailor knelt before the pile, the 
most happy of all. And when a soldier threw 
something on the pile he would say, ** Thank 
you, thank you, brother! It is very good." 

In the beginning Cheda looked at all this, 
but soon hid his head between his knees. And 
I, I could n't hide my emotion and tears. 

The little tailor was all changed by his 
happy smile. He looked at everything with 
his experienced eyes and exclaimed : — 

"Can you not see. Sergeant, how easy it 
is!" 

But suddenly he grew serious, his happy 
face darkened and he exclaimed in a dismayed 
tone: — 

"Mene nesrechog! I have only needle and 
thread, but no shears, and here one will have 
to cut very much!" 

Shears! What consternation! What ter- 
ror! What is to be done now? Was little 
Rada to remain naked in spite of all of these 
259 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



gifts, this perfect generosity? Really, I was 
very anxious, and Cheda lifted his head and 
looked around with a questioning glance. 
The soldiers, although they knew that they 
had no scissors, unconsciously felt in their 
pockets. Suddenly the tailor made an ex- 
clamation and ran to me : — 

"I beg you, Lieutenant, let me go. I re- 
member now. I have a friend in the staff of 
the regiment who has shears, I know. Let me 
go. Boga-me ! I will come back before Julock 
gets here." 

We all grew excited, and I said to the 
tailor: — 

"Go, go! Only don't lose yourself, and cer- 
tainly try to find the shears." 

The little tailor pulled his large cap down 
still more, and ran away in the freezing wind. 
And through the howl of the wind we heard 
again his happy voice : — 

"Be sure I will find the shears!" 

Silence fell around the fire. The big wood 
burned cheerfully. We no longer felt the ter- 
rible cold. How changed were all these men ! 
All those black faces were now light, and a 
260 



OUR CHILD 



smile on each one. At this moment they had 
forgotten the terrible present, and in looking 
over the fire and their gifts with tender, shin- 
ing eyes at the little child, they had seen their 
past, their happy past. Little Rada still slept, 
lie was content for the first time in a long 
while, because he fell asleep knowing that he 
was surrounded by the hearts of forty fathers 
and as many brothers, all full of love. 

"Hae-e-e! Second company!" sounded a 
voice in the darkness. 

"Here, here! " replied my soldiers. 

After a little while a soldier appeared, muf- 
fled in a hood which looked like a horn above 
his face. His horse followed him, its panting 
breath falling to the ground like red steam. 

"Lieutenant, here is an order from the 
Colonel. Ooh! dog's weather!" I took the 
order and he squatted before the fire and 
spread his big hands before it. 

The order was short. "Gathering of bat- 
talion at five o'clock. Movement of regi- 
ment immediately after. Direction, village 
of Boshniak. Once more is asked of you 
that, etc., etc." 

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Cheda pulled my sleeve and said to me 
slowly : — 

*'I did not tell you. To-morrow we shall 
have an assault. Many armies are gathered 
here now. The whole division of Shoomadia, 
the defense of Belgrade, the corps of Val- 
andov, and many other regiments. To-mor- 
row, that is to say, to-day, we shall attack the 
right wing of the Bulgarians so that the left 
wing will have to retreat from Lebana. It is 
the only way to save the place, the pass, and 
so all the people. Hae! If only the division 
of Shoomadia had come ten hours earlier, 
perhaps we could still have held Dobra- 
Glava — and certainly Lebana. But when 
they saw that they could not come with their 
infantry, they sent their artillery in a terrible 
rush yesterday ..." 

"Those cannon which saved us yester- 
day.'*" I interrupted. 

** Yes. Oh, you don't know anything? You 
did not know that the King himself was shoot- 
ing those cannon?" 

"The King!" cried the soldiers. 

"Yes. When he heard of our peril, he 
262 



OUR CHILD 



hastened from Prokuple, waited for the can- 
non and took them himself to the positions. 
He, himself, shot one of them. You have seen 
for yourself how dreadful it was there! All 
the cannon of the Bulgarians were directed to 
these eight of ours. The men were killed in 
piles around them." 

**And the King was still there?" exclaimed 
a soldier. 

"Yes." 

"Poor cheecha! What! He wished to be 
killed.'*" asked another voice. 

"No wonder!" replied Cheda slowly. 



Thus we got our child. 

The Fifteenth Regiment had the Fourth 
Battalion, the Fourth Battalion had the Sec- 
ond Company, the Second Company had the 
komora, the komora had Julock; he had four 
horses, and among them was Beeja. He was 
not an ordinary horse! He was small, thick, 
with slender legs and a beautiful head ! Black 
with a white star in his forehead, he had been 
the property of Julock and had lived in his 
263 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 

house with his children as a member of the 
family. When the war came the Government 
took Beeja, by requisition, to its service. By 
a strange chance he was sent to the Fifteenth 
Regiment, and my colonel, liking Julock, 
gave Beeja to him. Beeja was very sad from 
the first, because he loved Julock's children 
and the separation was hard for him. But 
finding that he was near his master and that 
he helped him, he made peace with his des- 
tiny. He carried his heavy burden quietly 
and patiently. We all liked him. Often I 
petted him and gave him sugar when I had 
it. After Lescovatz, where my company had 
lost many things, I gave orders not to load 
him any more, thinking that this would be 
much easier for him. But I was mistaken. 
He was very sensitive and easily hurt. When 
he saw that he went free, he thought that he 
was useless, that no one loved him any more, 
and became very downcast. He ate nothing; 
his round stomach grew flat; the big bones 
showed on his sides ; he permitted his tail and 
mane to be filled with burdock burrs, and 
went along with his nose to the ground. 
264 



OUR CHILD 



It was wonderful to see him, when little 
Rada got on his back the first time. Beeja 
had a good memory and he foolishly loved his 
happy past, even as we did. Feeling Rada on 
his back, he thought that he was one of his 
little friends. Oh, how proud he was! How 
high he held his beautiful head, and what 
graceful little steps he made! And later, when 
he saw how much Julock and all the rest of us 
loved Rada, he was quite sure that Rada was 
one of his good little friends, and from this 
time he, too, loved Rada. When he saw that 
he was useful, he began to eat again. Not only 
did he eat what was given him, but he pulled 
down the small branches, and even ate the 
thistles. Rada and he became the best of 
friends. They never parted. They slept to- 
gether, for Beeja was so warm! Rada loved 
Beeja as well as his own eyes! He petted him, 
pulled his ears, kissed his nose, talked to him 
unceasingly, patted his neck, and patiently 
picked out the burrs from his mane and tail. 
And so both of them were happy. 

We had no opportunity to see Rada for 
three days; we were fighting almost continu- 
265 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



ously. After fierce and terrible fighting for 
two days, the right wing of the Bulgarians was 
smashed entirely. We saw, the afternoon of 
the second day, their left wing in disordered 
flight through the valley of Yablanitza from 
Lebana. The third day my division had to 
hold new positions, while all the other divi- 
sions were retreating over the pass of Lebana. 
And that night we passed over too. 

How impatiently we waited for Julock to 
bring little Rada! And finally, when Julock 
appeared in the darkness, limping and lead- 
ing Beeja, and we heard the happy sound of 
Rada's "Good-evening," when he jumped and 
ran toward us, and embraced us, we trembled. 
Then we knew how much we loved this child. 
And these rough hearts, which were stout in 
the most dreadful scenes, now weakened; and 
the eyes of these men who never wept now 
filled with tears. 

We could now see how beautiful a child 
little Rada was ! The new suit fitted him like 
a glove. A real little soldier ! To tell the truth, 
the cap of that glavonya was too large for him, 
but it was better so because of the cold and 
266 



OUR CHILD 



wind. Julock had found a way to bathe him 
and had even cut his hair. Instead of dirt and 
tears, fair white skin and rosy cheeks showed. 
From his little red lips a stream of honey- 
sweet words flowed without stopping, and his 
lovely eyes glittered like two little stars ! Yes, 
our dear stars! The little stars of our great 
happiness ! 

Little Rada went from one to another; 
everybody petted, kissed, and embraced him, 
and he spoke to everybody with his cheerful 
little voice. He was quite changed. He was no 
longer a serious, unhappy human being, aged 
before his time, no longer a miserable little 
man, bent under a terrible burden of a thou- 
sand pains, but again a happy little child. 
Seeing around him these good fathers and 
many tender brothers, who had stayed his 
bitter tears and lifted the heavy burdens from 
his little shoulders, he again became a joyful 
little bird, always singing and always giving 
the great love of his little heart to all of us. 

And we older ones, how changed we were! 
About this I will not speak. Everybody who 
is a father, or who has a little brother, will 
267 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



know what this child had done for us. And 
each of us was either a father or a brother, 
each was a Serbian, and this was a Serbian 
child! 

Thus passed these happy days. 

My regiment was again the rear one. We 
had again constantly to defend the retreat. 
We were fighting from day to day. During 
the day we fought; one part of the night we 
retreated; the other part we rested, if such a 
time can be called rest. Before the dawn we 
went to the new positions, and the next day 
fought again. The fighting was dreadful, — 
very, very bloody; but now we did not feel 
this so bitterly, for we knew that after the 
battle little Rada would be waiting for us. 
His smile, his words, his love, his little starry 
eyes would cheer and comfort us. We fought 
with an almost superhuman power, defend- 
ing our child. He was a symbol for us. The 
future of Serbia, happiness, which we had 
to defend, and for which it was so sweet to 
die! 

I will never forget those nights when we 
were with Rada. How this diamond shone in 
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OUR CHILD 



the darkness ! And under his radiance how we 
changed ! The bloody hands were washed, the 
black faces would brighten under the touch 
of his little hand, and the eyes lighten under 
the gleam of his little stars. Very often, when 
we had corn, we made popcorn to the great 
joy of little Rada, or we would make tea 
which he loved very much, and drinking the 
tea, or with a mouth full of popcorn, he would 
tell us about his Beeja, about the great suc- 
cess in making whistles along the way, about 
the very, very good beans which Julock 
cooked, about the road, about the brooks, 
about the snow and how many of his pic- 
tures he made by lying in it, about the vil- 
lages, about the friends, and a hundred other 
things. 

Then we were so happy ! In these moments 
we forgot our dreadful present pain, unhap- 
piness, weariness, cold, snow, blood, and 
murders; and looking on this Serbian child 
we thought of our future, about the new, 
bright, magnificent future of Serbia! And in 
those nights the words of Evariste Gamlin 
often came to my mind: "It is nothing that 
269 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



blood is now flowing; it is nothing that we are 
now dying, for you, my little one, you will 
live in a happy future, in a golden liberty!" ^ 



But there were terrible moments which 
were still more terrible because of little Rada. 

One day we were surrounded — surrounded 
on all sides. That day we were at the position 
of Sweertzee, just at the old Serbian-Turkish 
border. The positions were very unfortunate 
for us. There was a plateau which was hollow 
in the middle, like a saddle upside down. At 
one end of the plateau was the old Serbian 
karaoola,^ and on the other end was the Turk- 
ish tower. At the left side of the plateau there 
were two ranges of high, sharp hills. One of 
them extended for two miles from the Serbian 
tower, and the other for three miles from the 
Turkish tower. Between these ranges was a 
very deep, dark valley. And all the hills were 
covered with old forests and big trees; and 
everywhere the canon was cut by brooks. 
The snow was deep, up to the knees. My regi- 

* A. France, Les Dieux ont soif. * Watch-tower. 

270 



OUR CHILD 



ment took the positions along the first range 
which extended from the Serbian tower. The 
Bulgarians attacked us before light, early in the 
morning. I could see that they were in a great 
hurry, because they wanted to finish, finally, 
my regiment which, even though we had no 
artillery and insufficient ammunition, had al- 
ways imposed upon them such serious and 
great losses, and always knew how to escape. 
In the beginning I was with my company in 
the regiment's reserve placed in the valley 
between the two towers. I had to stand at 
one place in the snow up to my waist, where 
the wind swept over. Not a pleasant job ! But, 
thank God, this pleasure was not for a long 
time. At eight o'clock in the morning I got 
an order to go to the end of the second range, 
which extended from the Turkish tower, for 
my colonel feared that, in spite of the dis- 
tance and difficulty, the Bulgarians might 
creep up to this range, cross it, and reach the 
plateau, and thus surround the whole regi- 
ment. I was reinforced by an officer and two 
platoons. We started at once, glad to warm 
ourselves. 

271 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



I saw right away how far I was from my 
regiment and how dangerous my duty was. 
The position was dreadful! At the very end 
of the range were two peaks, separated by a 
valley. On the first I left the ofiieer, Sergeant 
Trailo, three platoons, and my orders. I went 
to the other, with Cheda and the other three 
platoons. There were great forests every- 
where; everywhere were the long, steep slopes, 
on which I could see but a little distance be- 
cause of immense trees. The snow was very 
deep. What could I do here with a handful of 
men.'^ How could I watch successfully such 
a great territory? But I did the best I knew. 
Behind us was a deep brook and quite a prec- 
ipice with very steep sides. I reasoned that 
I was safe on this side, and so I sent the sen- 
tinels forward, and to the right and left sides 
of the hill. 

The battle was raging on the other side on 
the first range. At first I was not attacked. 
I did not order trenches to be dug: first, be- 
cause I had no time; secondly, it was quite 
impossible because of the deep snow; and 
finally, there were so many big trees that 
272 



OUR CHILD 



every one could find a shelter. The hours 
passed and nothing happened. There was a 
deep silence, the silence of a tomb, and only 
the trees crackled from the frost. The sol- 
diers were standing behind the trees silent, 
their feet freezing. Suddenly a soldier ran 
out, breathless, and exclaimed : — 

" The Bulgarians are coming from the left ! " 

He had not finished when another ran out. 

"The Bulgarians are advancing along the 
brook behind us ! '* 

A third man screamed from afar as if in- 
sane: — 

"There they are at the right!" 

Beautiful situation! 

I understood it instantly. They wanted to 
cut us off on this hill, repulse the others on 
the other hill, hold the range, and so come to 
the plateau. 

They half succeeded. I felt that my whole 
body trembled. The horror clutched our 
hearts, and the dreadfulness showed upon our 
faces. Oh, why are our hearts not made of 
steel, why do we have brains, why are we 
men? But all this was but for a moment. The 
273 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



next minute I recovered my coolness and called 
a soldier: — 

"Run to Trailo, if it is possible, and tell 
him to retreat slowly to the first good posi- 
tion. Then he must report at once to the colo- 
nel, asking help in order to save the towers. 
Absolutely, he must not try to defend us, be- 
cause then all would be lost. Do you under- 
stand.'^ Go, run as fast as you can!" 

The soldier ran. Then I ordered all sen- 
tinels to the top of the hill. I looked around 
me. I could see no farther than a hundred 
yards because of the tree- trunks. But one 
could hear, could feel everywhere around, a 
dull, hidden noise which came closer and closer. 
It seemed to me that I saw behind every tree 
the scowling, ugly, dreadful faces of those 
beasts, whose sly, devilish laughter echoed 
through the forest. 

With resolute looks and expanded breasts 
my soldiers stood before me; at one glance 
I understood these true friends, these tried 
warriors, these undaunted lions. Then I felt 
such an unspeakable rage toward these, who, 
not two years ago, had begged us for help, and 
274 



OUR CHILD 



who now were creeping upon us from the 
depths and darkness of the forest, that I 
cried : — 

"To the last man!" 

" To the last ! " replied my faithful Cheda, in 
a firm voice. 

All the others looked straight in my eyes. 
They were ready. 

I divided my men on four sides and every 
one chose his tree, A moment after the shots 
echoed rapidly from the right side. The bul- 
lets flew over our heads with the shrill sound 
of a furious woman, or they struck against 
the branches, which broke and fell upon the 
white snow. Then shots at the left, before us, 
and then from all sides. The broken branches 
fell like rain. Finally, wriggling like worms, 
hiding behind the trees, the black, devilish 
figures appeared. 

"Fire!" I shouted. 

And then this hill became a little volcano, 
which began to crush its mortal prey. The 
black figures disappeared behind the thick 
trees. When they appeared again, the volcano 
again belched its dreadful fire. "Ha, cruel 
275 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



men, the volcano is too much alive and will 
sell its crater very expensively." There was 
boiling and bubbling, as in hell, around this 
hill. 

After a time the Bulgarians saw that it was 
a very costly thing to climb to the top at once 
in glorious victory. And they contented 
themselves to do this later in a different way. 
I understood them. They wanted to force us 
to use up all our ammunition, and then: 
"Hands up, bratko!" 

This was dignified for them ! This was quite 
on a level with these beasts. And these 
sneaking wolves loved this cat's play! I felt 
a tremendous bitterness in my breast; I 
wanted to jump from my own skin; I bit my 
lips; my clothes burned my flesh; my mouth 
was dry, and I stooped, grasped a handful of 
snow, and put it into my mouth. 

The Bulgarians now attacked the second 
hill with all their power, leaving us in their 
dreadful trap. The fighting raged there for 
some time, then began to grow more and more 
distant, until, at last, we were alone. 

Suddenly, as if some one struck me on the 
276 



OUR CHILD 



head, my hair rose, my heart stopped. I lost 
my breath, and I felt as if I should fall. The 
picture of little Rada came before my eyes. 
Oh, my dear little child! What! Not to see 
you any more? Not to see your beautiful 
eyes again.'' Our dear little stars! Not to hear 
again your sweet voice? What! Not to feel 
again your warm embrace, your little heart? 
And you? What will happen to you without 
us? What! Again shall you be hungry, naked, 
barefooted, again to go alone, to die on the 
road? No, no! Fly away dreadful thoughts, or 
I shall be insane, insane . . . 

A creature crept to me. The face was 
black, the eyes were staring, the mouth was 
open, gasping for breath, and the hands were 
outstretched as though to repulse something 
dreadful. It was Cheda with the same 
thoughts. And this steely, cold man shiv- 
ered like a small branch. From the depths 
of his breast came a painful exclamation : — 

"Not to see him any more! " 

Oh, my poor Cheda! Look around you. 
Why do you ask from me this terrible an- 
swer? 

277 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



Suddenly he jumped to his feet, seized my 
shoulders with both hands and shook me 
fiercely. He tried to speak, to tell me some- 
thing, but only painful, husky sounds came 
from his throat. Insane! flashed through my 
head. God, what to do? Without realizing 
what I was doing I picked up a handful of 
snow and thrust it against his face, crying: — 

**Cheda, Cheda, for Heaven's sake, what 
is it?" 

His face quivered and the words came: — 

"Impossible, impossible, not to see him 
again! Do you hear me? It is impossible I We 
must see him . . . He must be with us . . . 
He must not die! We have to save ourselves 
... we have, we have ..." 

I worked a long time to calm him. Some- 
times the most powerful man will have mo- 
ments when he grows weak. Those moments 
for Cheda were now. When they passed, he 
became again the strong little man who could 
overcome almost incredible hindrances. Then 
I said to him : — 

"If we could only hold out until the 
night." 

278 



OUR CHILD 



"Impossible!" Cheda replied slowly. "The 
soldiers have only a hundred bullets apiece. 
And what is that? Nothing. One hour of 
time." 

"But we have to do something T* I ex- 
claimed in a resolute voice. 

"We must!" he replied firmly. After, he 
added slowly and sorrowfully: "But what? 
What?" 

We were sitting beside each other making 
foolish, impracticable plans when he leaped 
to his feet and cried in an excited voice, 
pointing into the distance: — 

"Fog! Do you see it?" 

The tears flew to my eyes. O God, I thank 
Thee! In the distance, over a great mountain, 
rolled the fog like a gigantic river, which 
moved toward our hill. 

"It is much better than the night!" ex- 
claimed Cheda in a transport of gladness, and 
went to the soldiers. He crept from one to 
another, quickly telling something to each 
one. I left this old warrior, this wonderful, 
powerful man to act, feeling that only he could 
save us. And in myself I felt such a power, 
279 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



such a desire for life, such love, that I wished 
to embrace this whole nature, to embrace the 
unseen God who creates these wonders! The 
battle began to rage more and more fiercely. 

Shortly after, Cheda again crept to me: — 

" All is ready. As soon as the fog comes, and 
I think it will come very soon, we will run 
down to the brook behind us . . ." 

"But this is a precipice!" I interrupted 
Cheda. 

"There can be no precipices now. We must 
go, we must fly over, if necessary. "When the 
fog comes, we will run dowTi making our way 
with bombs. In order to confuse the Bulga- 
rians on the other sides, Atsa, Jare, Kale, and 
your Meeloye will remain here, shooting con- 
tinually. When they hear our bombs, they 
will throw theirs also, that the Bulgarians 
may think that we are fighting on all sides. 
Do you think so too?" 

"It is good. But what will those who re- 
main do?" 

"Somebody has to be sacrificed," said 
Cheda. 

Then we both went to the soldiers explain- 
280 



OUR CHILD 



ing to them what they were to do. The Bul- 
garians had formed a cruel ring nearly around 
us. A great wave of impatience surged through 
my body, as if I already felt their hot breath 
and heard their rough laughter. 

Like a rushing flood the heavy, icy fog 
quickly enveloped the whole hill. The Bul- 
garians, who had not seen the fog coming, 
were now so astonished that their guns 
stopped for a short time. The soldiers came 
noiseless as shadows to Cheda and me. The 
four guns on the four sides were shooting like 
twenty. 

"All.''" I asked the soldiers in a low voice. 

"Yes!" 

"Have you unscrewed your bombs?" 

"Yes!" 

"In one line, and forward!" 

Cheda was beside me. He looked at me. 
Oh, this look! Never can words say such a 
farewell ! Pck ! as he struck the cap of his 
bomb against a stone. The bomb was lit. 
Then he swung it round and round, saying: 
"Now, my 'black friend,' make the way!" 
And the black friend flew far, far. 
281 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



We did the same. The little volcano crashed 
its last terrible fire . . . Then . . . How can 
I tell 3^ou this, which I myself cannot tell. 

Torn, bloody, and exhausted, we sought 
long into the night our regiment. We did not 
know where it had retreated or what had hap- 
peneMi to it. Finally, after midnight, we saw 
hundreds and hundreds of fires. It was my 
division. After half an hour of looking and 
asking, we found my company at last. Dark 
shadows sat around their big fires. Before 
one of them I saw little Rada. Bent, with his 
head in his hands, I recognized again the lit- 
tle sad man loaded again with the old heavy 
burden. My heart just wanted to jump out 
from my breast. Cheda and I ran and fell be- 
side him, one on each side . . . There are no 
words to describe our happiness! Oh! How 
he embraced us, how he kissed us! And 
through his happy tears he spoke: — 

"My nana always told me that I should 
say prayers to God's mother and she will 
help me. I said prayers all the day long for 
you!" 



282 



OUR CHILD 



"Apples?" said Trailo, very much sur- 
prised. 

"Yes, apples! If you bring apples to me, 
I will kiss you," replied little Rada, laugh- 
ing. 

I have told that Trailo was a very strange 
man. Rough, unintelligent, quite wild, the 
discipline of many years had made a solid 
stone, a good machine. Unfortunately this 
stone was not without a heart. At first, when 
Rada's love could not pierce his armor, he did 
not want to see the child. He never spoke to 
him, and when he had to speak to him, he 
did so as over an axe. He had often asked : — 

** How is it possible that there can be a child 
in a disciplined company?" 

But later, when he saw how the rest of us 
loved our child, and cared for him, he began 
to think. And still later, when he saw what a 
golden child little Rada was, how good and 
joj^ul he always was, when he, at last, found 
out that he was the only element of happi- 
ness for us, he began to love him too. Trailo 
went from one extreme to the other and be- 
came crazy about little Rada. But too late. 
283 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



Now Rada did not want to see him. Poor 
Trailo! What was there in the world that he 
did not do to please the child? He made him 
popguns and whistles, he gave his watch and 
his small gun to him, he sang to him, and told 
funny stories, he carried him on his shoulders, 
he lifted him twenty times in the air, and three 
hundred other wonderful things he did for 
him. But in vain! Dear child! Rada loved 
him; he told this to every one of us, but he 
did n't want to tell him. This was Rada's 
caprice. A childish joy! A new source for 
jokes and laughter. But as Trailo could not 
understand this he had the pain of Tantalus. 

Rada was very fond of apples. They were 
his weak point. You could do anything with 
him if you gave him apples. This night, he 
had said to Trailo that his kiss cost ten ap- 
ples! There was much laughter! But Trailo 
took the matter very seriously. Apples! 
Where could they be found now.'' Because of 
that he asked angrily : — 

*'Do you really want apples.'''* 

"Ten of them!" Little Rada made this 
serious statement from Cheda's lap. 
S84 



OUR CHILD 



Trailo sighed, got up, and said to me: — 

*'I beg you, Lieutenant, let me go. I 
promise to be back before we go to position.'* 

And not waiting for my answer he ran into 
the darkness. I became very sorrowful. We 
were in the midst of the Albanians, who used 
every occasion for their wild vengeance. 
Whenever they found a soldier alone, or a 
small group of them, they killed without 
mercy. Knowing this I began to reproach 
little Rada, who grew serious and then began 
to weep. Cheda was angry with me. 

"Why do you reproach the child? That 
crazy old man ought to know what he is do- 
mg. 

The next day the fighting began, but Trailo 
had not come. I was very, very anxious. 
What if he had been killed by the Albanians? 
It would be terrible, for Trailo was truly a 
hero who always wished to be killed in a hand- 
to-hand fight. And yet, I felt a satisfaction. 
For if this wild and seemingly heartless man 
loved this child so much that he was willing 
to sacrifice his life for its pleasure, how much 
more would these men, who loved Rada, do, 
285 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



not only for him, but for Serbia, its children 
and its future. 

That day the fighting was very good for us, 
and the positions excellent. We were on a 
hill, covered with small thick woods. Before 
us was the bare valley, through which the 
Bulgarians had to pass. They had scarcely 
succeeded in passing half of it, when we 
nailed them with our fire. They had scarcely 
time to dig miserable little trenches in which 
to hide their heads; and even this was done at 
a great cost of their lives. Then, in their rage 
and powerlessness they began to shoot with 
"dum-dum"^ bullets, which, striking against 
the small stones around us, had exploded and 
filled our eyes with dust, earth, and stinging 
smoke; or they smashed our gun-stocks, gun- 
barrels, and heads . . . 

"Hae! Hae! Are you there?" exclaimed a 
joyful voice behind us. 

I turned my head. Trailo was standing 
there, red, smiling, with both hands lifted, in 
one of which he held a full knapsack. He was 
wild with joy. 

' Explosive bullets. 
286 



OUR CHILD 



"Look! Full knapsack! I ran all night . . .** 

"Lie down!" I shouted in terror. 

He did n't hear me, but kept on talking. 

"Fourteen are in it. Beautiful, red! I felt 
three hundred pains when I looked for them. 
I paid j5ve deenars ^ to those animals . . .** 

**Lie down, when I tell you! Can you not 
see that they are shooting with dum-dum 
bullets?" 

"Oo-h! Breega mene! I don't care! You 
know, Lieutenant, five deenars! But really 
they are beautiful ! How happy little Rada will 
be! How he will lo . . ." 

Suddenly a sound! As if something had 
struck against thin dry wood, and then, a 
muflBed boom. Trailo's brains spattered me. 
For an instant his crushed head hovered in 
the air, red and awful. Then it flew in an ap- 
palling circle and fell into the trench. The 
dead hand still held the knapsack of apples. 

"Where is Trailo? Where are my apples?'* 
asked poor Rada when Julock brought him the 
next night. We were all silent with bowed 
heads. Rada looked upon us bewildered. 

* Francs. 
287 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



Then he began to understand, for those 
scenes had often occurred, and asked, fright- 
ened : — 

"Where is my Trailo?" 

"Here are the apples," said Cheda in a 
low tone. 

Now Rada quite understood ; he fell in my 
arms and began to cry convulsively. 

"Oh, I know all. Every time I ask you why 
somebody does not come, you are always 
silent and never tell me anything. But I 
know they were killed. Oh! Bogo-moi! And 
bata Atsa, and Keetsa, and cheeka Meeloye, 
and Marko and Glavonya, and bata Kale, and 
Geeka and all, all the others ... I know that 
they were killed, and you would n't tell me 
anything, but are always silent. And now 
you are silent when I ask you for Trailo. And 
he is killed too! He was killed by the Alba- 
nians because of me, because of my apples.'* 

"Be quiet, Rada. He was not killed by the 
Albanians, but by the fighting," I said to him, 
and tried to quiet his great pain. 

But he cried still more: — 

"I know all; he was killed by the Albanians 
288 



OUR CHILD 



because of my apples! Oh, kookoo-mene! I 
will not eat the apples! Never will I eat 
them . . ." 

It was a long time before he grew quiet and 
went to sleep. Yet in his sleep he still moaned 
and slept very uneasily, twitching all night. 

After a while I noticed a change in Rada 
which caused me great anxiety. Even though 
he was cheerful, yet it was not quite the same. 
And during the last few days he had grown 
tired very quickly; he would be quiet for a 
long time and wanted to be in Cheda's or my 
lap. Then he would go to sleep very quickly. 
And sleeping in our arms we felt that his head 
was hot. Cheda had the same anxiety, but he 
did not dare to tell me. 

This night his head was burning hot. Cheda 
and I were sitting near him and bending over 
him. We were silent and motionless. Once 
Cheda touched his forehead, sighed deeply, 
and whispered : — 

"He's burning! God! If he grows sick?" 

I felt a dreadful pain in my heart, yet I 
kept calm, and said quietly in order to reas- 
sure Cheda : — 

289 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



"Oh, it's nothing! It is only from to-day's 
emotion." 

Cheda shook his head doubtfully. And I 
myself did not believe what I said, and a great 
terror clutched me. The soldiers who heard 
this and who were anxious, too, got up and 
were gathering around Rada. And as a mother 
hovers over her only child, fearing it is sick, 
so hovered these unhappy soldiers over little 
Rada. And perhaps no mother ever asked 
with greater feeling, than the lips of these sol- 
diers had whispered : — 

"God! Will you send to us this culmination 
of unhappiness.^" 



"I implore, I implore you. Doctor, to save 
him!" cried out Cheda wringing his hands in 
pitiful distress. 

That of which we did not dare to think, 
that of which we had the most terror, now 
came. Little Rada grew terribly sick! 

We had not seen Rada for two days after 
the night when Trailo was killed, for all 
komora went to Preestina. During this time 
£90 



OUR CHILD 



we were very anxious, for when we parted 
from Rada, we saw that he was changed, m 
spite of all his efforts to be gay and to make 
jokes as usual. We saw how great an effort 
he made to do this. And when he got on the 
back of his Beeja, and said, "God help you! 
I will see you again! " his voice was so sad and 
so weak. And finally, during all this time, we 
felt that he was sick, as we would feel if one 
part of our being was sick, for Rada was bound 
to our hearts, mingled with our whole life. 
Black, dark, sorrowful thoughts were with us 
during all this time. 

And this night when we came behind Prees- 
tina, after the last battle which my regiment 
had, what terrible moments we had waiting 
for Rada. At last Julock came, carrying Rada 
in his arms, and Beeja followed them with 
drooping head. 

"In God's name, what is it?" I exclaimed, 
and jumped up when I saw them coming. 

Julock was silent. 

" So help me God, it is nothing ! " said Rada, 
raising his head from Julock's arm. "It is 
nothing. Cheeka Julock always thinks I am 
291 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



very sick, but I only have a little sore throat. 
To-morrow I will be all well. I am well now. 
Here, you can see ..." And he slid down 
from Julock's arms and ran to Cheda. 

Then Rada shook hands with everybody, 
embraced everybody, and talked to all, as 
usual ; but soon he lost his strength and came 
to Cheda's lap, laying his head wearily against 
his breast. He grew very weak and sank in 
Cheda's arms. I saw how rapidly his little 
breast rose and fell. 

"God, how he is burning! The child has 
fever!" cried Cheda. 

And there was night, cold wind, desert, icy 
stones everywhere around, and no help from 
anywhere ! All night the soldiers ran to find 
the regiment's doctor, but in vain. All night 
Rada did not sleep. All night we listened with 
aching hearts to Rada's moans. Day came 
and we had to start. "We wanted to carry 
him, but he did not want to hear of this. 

"Why do you want to feel that I am very 
sick when I am not. I can ride. And then my 
Beeja would weep without me!" he said, try- 
ing to smile. 

292 



OUR CHILD 



O God, what a terrible time! Through 
what moments a man has to pass ! For in this 
one day I endured more unhappiness than in 
all the time since war had begun. 

To-day we passed over Kossovo.* Serbian 
Kossovo Field ! What is contained in this one 
phrase! What it means, explains, and speaks 
to my whole nation! On it, six centuries be- 
fore, died Serbian Liberty, after a dreadful 
superhuman battle with Mohammedan tribes. 
On it was beheaded holy Tsar ^ by the foul and 
sacrilegious hand of bald Mooya. On it fell 
Meelosh-Obeeleetchu, Kosantcheetch-Ivane, 
Topleetsa-Meelane, the nine dear brothers of 
Yoogovitcha, standard-bearer Boshko, the 

' Kossovo is a large plain in the southwestern part of 
Serbia, where, on the 15th of June, 1389, there was a battle 
between Turks and Serbians, in which the Serbians were de- 
feated and lost their political independence, which they did not 
regain for more than five centuries. The Serbian people looked 
upon Kossovo Plain as one of their most sacred and historical 
places. It has always been the inspiration of the most beauti- 
ful Serbian national songs. 

^ Lazar, Tsar, otherwise "Knez-Lazar," ruled over Serbia 
from 1375 to 1389. After the battle of Kossovo he was taken 
prisoner and beheaded in the presence of the mortally wounded 
and dying Murad 1. He had tried to create a "Christian 
League" from neighboring states against Turkish invasion. 
Later he was buried in the cloister of Ravanitsa, and is wor- 
shiped as a saint by the whole Serbian nation. 

293 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



youngest among them — all, all great heroes! 
Yes, on it set the sun of Serbian Liberty, which 
did not rise again for five centuries! From it 
did not flow the sweet spring water, where 
flowed the blood of the whole nation! On it 
the little nightingale did not warble where the 
wild hidook shot his javerdar I Only the gray 
eagle soared from it to the dim clouds, telling 
to them its pain! 

On thee, after nearly six centuries of abject 
slavery, the sun of Serbian Liberty rose again. 
On thee slavery's chain was broken! Once 
again the trumpet-toned songs echoed from 
Serbian breasts, proclaiming the new time, 
the new happiness ! 

O immense plain ! O great Kossovo! Great, 
old monument! O eternal hope of ours! O 
cradle of glory ! O creator of undying Serbian 
songs ! O endless cemetery in which are lying 
the bones of a hundred thousand! O sacred 
mirror of my nation! O sacred Kossovo, of 
what art thou thinking, what art thou feel- 
ing? Now, when over thine ancient shoulders 
are flying thy people? Leaving thee, their 
dear Kossovo ! I heard thy sigh ! Thine, and 
£94 



OUR CHILD 



that deepest and most painful of those thou- 
sands, whose bones thou art still keeping in 
thine embrace! 

And we crossed Kossovo to-day with our 
sick Rada ! Oh, my good reader, can you not 
see how weak words are before this great un- 
happiness? And yet the human heart must 
suffer all this, suffer and still live and beat, 
in order to suffer still more. 

Little Rada had ridden Beeja all the fore- 
noon, but after that he could no longer ride. 
Suddenly he grew very weak. All the courage 
of his little heart, all his force, his will, had 
passed. The terrible sickness had grasped him 
in its relentless power! 

Then we carried him — one after another 
— as our greatest treasure. We went silently 
with bowed heads over Kossovo Field, and 
in our arms our child moaned sadly. 

When we had crossed Kossovo and night 
came, we stopped and made fires. Rada was 
lying on a little pile of straw, twisting in pain, 
opening wide his mouth for air, stretching out 
his little hands, seeking help! Help! Oh, my 
God ! Was ever such a night as this ! Since 
295 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



five o'clock in the evening I had ridden on 
horseback everywhere to find the doctor. 
Finally, far in the night, I succeeded in find- 
ing him and brought him hurriedly to Rada. 
He was a young man, very good, and an ex- 
cellent friend of mine. He loved Rada very 
much, as did the whole regiment, and so 
he came quickly to help him. Oh, my good 
man! 

Now he was kneeling before the fire, trying 
to look into Rada's throat, holding his head 
with one hand. I was holding a little dim 
lantern and Cheda was beseeching without 
stopping: — 

"Save him, I implore you, Doctor!" 

At last the doctor slowly let go the child's 
head which Cheda took and pressed against his 
breast. Little Rada began to moan again. 

"What is it.'*"I asked the doctor, shiver- 
ing. 

He was silent. He sat down before the fire, 
covered his face with both hands and sighed 
deeply. I grasped his shoulder and shook 
him : — 

"In God's name, speak! What is it?'* 
296 



OUR CHILD 



"Diphtheria!" he said with greatest pain. 

Ah ! My hair rose and a cold sweat broke 
out upon me. 

"And?" 

"Oh, Meecha, why do you ask me when you 
know for yourself ..." 

"WTiat! You cannot help him?" I inter- 
rupted him with sinking hearL 

"How? I heed serum, I need a hypodermic, 
a bed, care, ice-packs, milk, drugs . . . and 
. . . where can I find all these here? " 

"It means that there is no help? He must 
die!" I exclaimed, as insane. 

The doctor looked at me. His eyes were 
full of tears. Then his head fell and he whis- 
pered : — 

"Yes, he must die!" 

A dreadful scream! The scream of a man 
who has been struck deep in the heart by a 
knife. And Cheda exclaimed, pressing the 
child against his breast : — 

"Impossible, impossible, I will not permit 
this!" 

The heads of my soldiers, who gazed at the 
doctor with wide-open eyes, after his words, 
297 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



were bowed; the last stroke had fallen upon 
them. 

"He must die!" ran in my head unceas- 
ingly, and I sat and gazed into the fire all 
night. 

"Nana! . . . nana! . . . where is my nana? 
... I want my nana!" moaned little Rada 
in delirium, stretching out his little hands in 
the darkness, toward the black sky. 



The next day, oh, destiny, destiny, we had 
to go forward. Again we carried our sick 
child. Sadly we went on through this dark, 
desert, terrible land, upon which God him- 
self had turned his back. Before us were the 
gigantic black and white Albanian Alps. And 
we went toward them with a sick child ! 

Rain began to fall — the heavy, cold, win- 
ter rain, which brought the culmination of 
such misery as made these moments impos- 
sible, unbearable . . . We had to roll little 
Rada in a flap of a tent, and this made his 
condition much worse, for the poor child 
needed much the fresh air. We went on 
298 



OUR CHILD 



slowly, sinking in the deep mud, quite up to 
our knees. And everywhere were so many 
soldiers, wagons, horses . . . 

Little Rada had not eaten for more than 
twenty-four hours. The sickness was such 
that he could swallow nothing but milk. Then 
I sent my soldiers in all directions to find milk. 
Poor men! They ran all day in this awful 
weather, but all came back, sad, exhausted, 
muddy to the neck, with empty cans. Is 
there no milk in this land? An Albanian 
would rather give poison than milk to a sick 
child! Now, and from hunger, you have to 
die, my poor child! 

When I took little Rada to carry, he would 
slowly reach out his little hot hand, he would 
embrace me with it, he would look at me 
with his beautiful eyes, sunken, feverish, and 
burning, and he would say slowly and pain- 
fully :- 

"The good God will not let me die, for I 
love you so much, just as I love my nana!" 

My poor child! Do not seek your nana 
among those who are alive, from those un- 
happy ones from whom they are taking every- 
299 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



thing, even those they love the most! Soon 
you will embrace your real nana. 

The raging wind drove the icy rain. I cov- 
ered the child again, and when I could see his 
little face no more, I wept. 

Beeja went at the rear of the company with 
the other horses. He went slowly, all wet, 
with drooping ears. Maybe with his animal 
instinct he knew that now he was entirely 
useless, and he went along with his nose to 
the mud. 

In the evening the rain ceased. Then we 
stopped, and with great difficulty built fires. 
The soldiers found a little dry straw some- 
where, on which we put Rada. The night 
brought still greater pain for the poor child. 
Cheda and I sat on each side of him, watching 
his a^'ful suffering. Looking without help- 
ing! Cheda was . . . Oh, how can I describe 
this to you.'^ Imagine yourselves in those mo- 
ments, good mothers, and create the picture. 
How would you feel? 

If the rain ceased, the fog fell — dreadful 
heavy fog. And it was the worst. All the air 
for little Rada was destroyed. Indescribable 
300 



OUR CHILD 



pain ! And in one moment, when the child was 
most tortured by pain, when he opened wide 
his mouth gasping for air, when in his throat 
something rattled terribly, when his little 
breast moved no more, when his hand clutched 
the air seeking help, then Cheda in a desperate 
moment put his two fingers in the child's 
throat to remove that which suffocated him. 

"What are you doing, unhappy?" I ex- 
claimed, pulling back his arm. 

"What! To look quietly when he is suffer- 
ing so dreadfully.'^ What! Not to help him? 
What! There is really no help? O God! 
God . . ." 

Thus passed the night and two more days. 



**He*s dying! He's dying!" cried out 
Cheda. 

With his little hands still clutching the air 
for help, w^ith little numb legs, with open 
mouth from which the terrible husky sound 
still came, with staring eyes, with his head 
on my arms, the child writhed in the last 
agony, in his dying gasp . . . Our little Rada, 
301 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



our child, our love, our hope, our future was 

dying! 

"Oh, my heart ! My sweet soul ! Hear me ! ** 
cried out Cheda, shaking the child in insane 
desperation. 

"Hear me! Don't die\ Don'i leave us! We 
love you, so, so much . . . and no one will love 
you as we did! Oh, my heart! Oh, my child! 
We will take you with us to Italy ! ^ Yes, to 
Italy, where there is always sunshine. And 
there we will buy fine clothes for you. The 
finest suit! And big horns! . . . Oh, hear me, 
my child ! Here is thy bata Meecha, and thy 
cheeka Cheda . . . and all thy soldiers. Tell 
them again:* Attention!* Tell them again . . . 
O God! God! Dreadful! . . . Look ... he's 
dying, he's dying!" . . . echoed these words 
through the terrible night, through this desert. 

Suddenly Cheda started, and exclaimed, 
frightened : — 

"What! He shall die without a candle?'* 

A soldier came to the fire and lighted a 
piece of lootch,"^ which he gave to Cheda. 

* At this time we had heard that the whole Serbian army 
would be evacuated to Italy. 

* A thin stick of pine wood. 



OUR CHILD 



"This is in place of a candle." 

Cheda took the burning stick with trem- 
bling hand and put it in Rada's hands and 
folded them over his breast. With the last 
strength the hands clasped around the stick. 
And in a last deep sigh, from which all his 
little body shook, his little soul flew from his 
tortured body . . . and little Rada became a 
little angel who flew straight to the arms of 
his nana . . . 

The pitchwood burned slowly and lighted 
his pale face, and his wide-open eyes. Eyes! 
His beautiful eyes ! Our dear little stars ! The 
stars of our happiness! Now dead . . . From 
the pitchwood came slowly burning tar, which 
ran down, making streaks on his little hands, 
on his dead hands ! 

Around midnight the snow began to fall . . . 



The dawn grew white, yet nothing could 
be seen, for the heavy fog covered everything. 
Where the fire was, snow had fallen . . . We 
were all motionless and stiffened by the terri- 
ble unhappiness and cold . . . before us was a 
303 



SERBIA CRUCIFIED 



white pile. It was the flap of the tent which 
covered Httle Rada . . . 

The soldiers who were passing by would 
stop astonished. Tlien they understood. 
Slowly, they took off their caps, crossed them- 
selves, and went on again, sad, silent, with 
bent heads, toward the white mountains. 

"We have to bury him," said Cheda, speak- 
ing very low. 

When I lifted my head and looked at 
Cheda, I did not recognize him. It was dread- 
ful — what one night made of this man, this 
father, this Serbian! 

Afterwards the soldiers with greatest pain 
dug the frozen earth. They dug the grave — 
the grave for our little Rada, for our dear lit- 
tle child, for our happiness . . . 

We put little Rada in the case of our com- 
pany's archives, which we took out from it 
and bound in a flap of a tent. When the sol- 
diers were lowering the case into the grave, I 
embraced Cheda. And yet only these men, 
only these fathers, can help in these sorrows 
... Oh, my good Cheda! How much we were 
asking from you ! 

304 



OUR CHILD 



Never, over one grave, had fallen more bit- 
ter tears than over this simple little mound 
. . . and never warmer prayers came from 
human hearts. 

Two Albanians shivering with cold, with 
their fingers in the little pockets of their 
trousers, with their heads wrapped in white 
rags, were standing there and wondering what 
we were doing. 

**\Yliat is the name of this place?" I asked 
them later: at least to know the place where 
our child was buried. 

The Albanians looked at me in an insane 
way, still more astonished, shrugged their 
shoulders, and they said their eternal : " Skaa- 
heetch!" 

They did not understand me. 

God! ^Vill they, when we go away, dig up, 
destroy Rada's grave from religious fanat- 
icism, or from wild instinct, or from bloody 
vengeance, or simply to take the case and 
child's clothing? 

THE END 



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